A Bad Idea or, No Means Yes
by New Neon
Summary: Zoro has decided that having sex with Sanji would be a BAD IDEA for several reasons. Sanji doesn't agree.
1. Chapter 1

I have to say that this is my first fic in which any of the characters that I've written have had anything close to sex, and yes, I will get there in later chapters but I'm just working my way up to that. So, be nice and tell me if it sounds terrible.

If Zoro had to figure out how he had gotten here he supposed that he would have started by pointing out that it'd been a very long day. It'd been one of those days where absolutely everything seems to go wrong, where the weather attacks them, where other pirates attack them and where Luffy's boundless enthusiasm and lack of common sense attacks them.

As it was they were on a beach. The Thousand Sunny was docked out in the ocean, well, it was somewhere between docked and shipwrecked on the rocks. The damage wasn't great but the ship clearly wasn't going anywhere for a while and Sanji and Usopp had concluded that they could do nothing to the ship until morning when it was light and they could properly assess the damage. So the entire crew had abandoned ship temporarily, taking supplies with them and setting up camp on the beach.

They'd all taken their own things, Usopp and Franky had brought their tools, Sanji had apparently brought half the kitchen and Nami and Robin had compromised and brought each other seeing as neither of their pass times, map making and reading respectively, coped well with being submerged in water on the way to land and Robin couldn't swim. Zoro had brought his swords of course, but he had also brought booze. It was on his second trip back to the ship after escorting his swords and his idiot captain safely to land that he brought the booze. He had slipped into the kitchen and found Sanji there.

The entire ship including the kitchen was tilted at a steep angle, forcing people to walk tilted to avoid falling over and sliding across the room. He'd actually been impressed that the kitchen was still so neat, all the cupboards were shut and very few things had fallen on the floor. But then again Sanji was a seafaring cook and Zoro shouldn't have been surprised that Sanji had proofed his kitchen against storms and shipwreck.

He'd walked over to the cupboard containing the booze and carefully opened it so nothing fell out before piling all of the various kinds of booze into a giant sack. He'd expected Sanji to say something, but he'd not expected Sanji to look at him, nod and say:

"Good idea."

He supposed that precise moment was where he'd say that the whole thing had started. With the fact that there was booze and Sanji wasn't being a little bitch for once.

As a rule Zoro didn't usually get drunk. He'd trained himself against it and improved his already solid tolerance against alcohol. However, not getting drunk required some concentration, especially if one wanted to walk that line of pleasantly buzzed between drunk and sober. He wanted to be not sober but still able to fight.

Tonight however he was just so ticked off and so tired and so not in the mood for anyone else's shit that he'd allowed himself to start getting drunk. Sanji's food had helped cushion the blow of the booze but he was still sitting under a palm tree in the moonlight getting drunk alone.

As much as he loved his nakama he'd had enough of them for one day, it was Luffy's own stupidity that'd gotten them shipwrecked in the first place. And on top of that the last thing he wanted to hear was Nami screeching about how Luffy shouldn't have been steering and definitely shouldn't have been steering when he couldn't take simple navigational instructions from her. He didn't want to hear Franky and Usopp whining pitifully over the ship, he didn't want to hear Usopp telling lies to Chopper or any of Brook's stupid jokes. He just wanted some peace and quiet and lots of booze.

As such he'd been a little put out when Sanji had flopped down on the sand against the palm tree with him. He'd picked that palm tree because it was both comfy and an awful long way away from the others so he wouldn't be disturbed with things that he didn't want to deal with. And the list of things that he didn't want to deal with right now completely included arguing with Sanji.

But Sanji didn't say anything dumb, he didn't say anything at all in fact. He just took another swig from the bottle of wine in his hand, apparently having abandoned the frilly pretence of wine glasses, and sighed and closed his eyes.

Zoro had paused at that, he couldn't quite believe that Sanji could be anywhere near him without being an ass and shouting at him. But they did have rare moments like this of quiet and peace, so he wasn't going to push it. So he leant back against the palm tree with Sanji and drank.

After that things got a little… fuzzy.

At some point he felt the world tip sideways and his head hit something hard and pointy. Which, as it turned out was Sanji's shoulder and collarbone.

"You're bony." He'd muttered, and drank some more. Sanji just snickered at that and took another swig of wine from what was at least his second bottle as there was another lying empty at Sanji's bare feet. He didn't move from Sanji's shoulder on the basis that it required effort and he was too drunk and too tired to bother with that. He looked up at Sanji to gauge his reaction but the man's eyes were hidden from view by that stupid fringe. But the man's mouth looked relaxed so Zoro guessed that Sanji wasn't about to kick him senseless.

He thought that perhaps Sanji was looking at him, not that Zoro could see through the thick blonde hair. But he knew that Sanji could see to some extent through that mop, and his head was tilted slightly in Zoro's direction. But Sanji said nothing so Zoro shrugged and let it go and drank a little more.

Now, had Zoro been sober he might have considered this a bad idea, or at least tempting fate for things that are definitely a bad idea to occur. But Zoro was not sober.

He'd flopped out on the sand at one point, he'd taken his shirt off because he was hot and he was in the process of trying to take his belt with his swords on off without getting up again, which involved him lifting his hips off of the sand and trying to shimmy the damn twisty belt undone.

His haramaki had been getting in the way so he'd taken that off as well and thrown it over by Sanji and the palm tree where his shirt was currently resting too. Had he been sober and not so occupied with the triumph of successfully removing his belt and swords he might have recognised the expression on Sanji's face as one that should be reversed lest bad decisions happen. But he was not sober. He went to take another swig of sake but found nothing left in the bottle, his last bottle in fact.

"I'm out of booze." He'd whined at the sky and anyone within earshot, which at the moment was just Sanji.

"How terrible." Sanji had said in a strange voice and took another gulp of his wine.

"Get me some booze?" He'd asked, looking up at Sanji pleadingly in a way that he'd have been too proud to do when sober.

"No. We're out of sake anyway, you drank it all." Sanji said definitively with a look that suggested that whilst he was too mellow at the moment to be angry about that he would be sober enough and hung-over enough tomorrow to be very angry at Zoro about that.

"Well, do we have anything else good?" Zoro asked, trying to remember what other booze he'd brought with him.

"I'm not getting up to get you booze." Sanji said flatly. He threw some half assed insults at Sanji but he was too drunk to think right about them and apparently calling Sanji 'dart-cook' just made him laugh instead of offending him. He tried again and ended up with the nonsense insult of 'love-brow' which produced a howl of laughter from Sanji.

He should have been annoyed at Sanji but he actually liked the way that Sanji laughed when he wasn't being mean or laughing at things that the girls said that weren't funny. So he just smiled and stretched out languidly on the warm sand instead.

"You can have some of my wine." Sanji offered after a moment.

"Wine tastes like piss." Zoro responded because it was quite frankly true.

"Then you don't get any. I was going to drink it all myself anyway." Sanji retorted and Zoro could hear him downing the last of the bottle. He heard the soft sound of the glass bottle hitting the sand and then the shuffle of Sanji moving.

Sanji's face appeared above him and it took Zoro a moment to realise that Sanji was on his hands and knees above him, one of Sanji's knees was at Zoro's hip and the other was between his legs. Zoro's arms were up by his head anyway so Sanji's hands were buried in the sand by Zoro's armpits and all Zoro could think is that Sanji is _remarkably_ close and actually in his own sneering way with shitty facial hair, is kind of beautiful up close.

"What?" Zoro asked with a little less irritation in his voice than he'd originally intended.

"Shut up." Sanji had muttered before swooping down and pressing a kiss to the edge of Zoro's mouth. Before Zoro's brain had even caught up with what had happened he'd turned slightly and kissed Sanji back, full on the mouth.

There had been a certain amount of groaning between the two of them and that kiss had quickly become very open mouthed and Zoro found that he didn't mind if Sanji's tongue tasted of wine and perhaps wine didn't taste so bad.

When his brain catches up to the situation however Zoro feels a flash of panic and this is the moment that everything up until now had been leading to and he'd just been to dumb to see it. It'd all started with that stupid booze.

He remembers why he never gets drunk, firstly because it dulls his fighting and secondly because the rest of him stops going along with the rules that his brain has set based on what is and isn't a good idea. And kissing Sanji is not a good idea. However right now he can't remember why.

He sits up trying to get away from Sanji so he can get a second to think but Sanji just straightens up along with him and now he has Sanji's ass in his lap and the cook is carding his fingers through Zoro's green hair and kissing along his jaw. This, Zoro finds, is unproductive to thinking clearly. He tilts his head back and groans and he can feel the flash of Sanji's smile across his skin before the blonde ducks down and starts kissing and nipping Zoro's neck.

He tries to focus.

He shouldn't be doing this with Sanji. Not that he's not thought about it before because, God, he's thought about this a lot. But his imagination has done no justice to what it's actually like to have the skinny long-legged limber Sanji squirming in his lap in an attempt to ravish any exposed skin that Zoro has.

But he shouldn't be doing this. He and Sanji are nakama and he can't go about wrecking his relationship with any of his nakama because it's too damn important. Aside from how close he is to Luffy he made the man a promise and Luffy made him one. He needs to be on Luffy's ship to fight Mihawk because the odds of him running into Mihawk again outside the Grand Line are so impossibly small that it's not even an option. If he stops being nakama with anyone on the Sunny then he loses his one chance at fulfilling his dream and his promise and he can't do that. And on the list of things that can potentially ruin that whole deal is getting into a messy situation with Sanji.

So he should really- oh god, Sanji's licking his scar now. He glances down to see Sanji working his way diagonally down his chest following the line of gnarled flesh that is Mihawk's mark on him. That really shouldn't be as hot as it is but he can't help but moan and fall back on his elbows, giving Sanji a better angle to work his way down his scar. His mind helpfully offers up the knowledge of how far down that scar goes, plunging right down past his hipbone, and the thought of Sanji's mouth anywhere near his hips or groin in general sends a bright white flare of heat through his belly.

No, no, no! He needs to focus and not have his hands tangled in Sanji's hair. This is a bad idea, he and Sanji barely get on at the best of times, adding sex to that would be a bad idea.

His brain hangs for a while on the idea of sex with Sanji. This obviously has enough of an effect on him for Sanji to notice because he feels the smile against his skin and certainly feels the obliging roll of Sanji's hips that makes Zoro's mind go blank again.

Sanji's hands sneak below the loose waistband of Zoro's trousers, unhindered by the belt that Zoro had obliviously removed earlier. It's only when Sanji's long thin oh-so-precious fingers find their prize that Zoro's brain is kick-started back to reality with a lightning spark that runs right from his cock up to his brain. He needs to stop this, and soon. This is most definitely a bad idea, even leaving the whole ruining their relationship as nakama aside he has no idea how drunk Sanji might be and how potentially furious Sanji might be about this in the morning. He'd get the blame for not putting the breaks on Sanji and rightly so.

He focuses on that and balances on one elbow to free the other arm up to push Sanji back. This fails fantastically, he forgets sometimes that Sanji is practically as strong as he is and Sanji is right now incredibly determined to get his hands down Zoro's trousers and into his pants and being quite successful at it too.

"Sanji, _Sanji._" Zoro tries, his voice coming out breathier than he'd like.

"We can't- no." He continues, and pushes against Sanji's chest again in an attempt to get his message through.

"We can't what?" Sanji rumbles, his voice deep and husky in a way that makes Zoro twitch. Sanji lurches forward suddenly and latches his mouth onto Zoro's ear, the one with the earrings.

"What, Zoro?" Sanji breathes against Zoro's ear.

And he's just opening his mouth to tell Sanji exactly what they can't do when Sanji somehow gets Zoro's earlobe and all of his earrings in his mouth and runs his tongue along the line where metal meets flesh. But when Sanji swallows with his earrings still in his mouth Zoro practically melts. All his brain can come up with is the idea that Sanji doing that would feel even more fantastic with Sanji's mouth around his dick. All he can do is moan nonsense vowels and arch his back into Sanji.

Sanji releases his earrings with a self-satisfied sounding pop and moves back down to Zoro's scar, apparently satisfied with Zoro's non-verbal answer.

"No, no." Zoro repeats now that his treacherous brain has returned back to him. He curses himself for drinking so much, if he was sober he'd be able to think of a way to talk himself out of this. Mind you, if he was sober he wouldn't have got anywhere near this situation at all.

"I can't do this- I- oh god." Zoro yelps as Sanji's nails scrape down his spine.

Sanji looks up at him one blue eye visible with its pupil blown out with arousal, that along with the flush on Sanji's face and the tips of his ears is almost enough to short circuit his brain.

"What?" Sanji purrs, "you don't know how? I can show you."

Zoro feels a flash of irritation, he's not some goddamn virgin, he knows what to do. Hell, he could make Sanji beg if he wanted to. Which he does want to, so _so_ badly, but he can't.

He's about to open his mouth to say as much when his mind finally hits on something useful. Sanji doesn't know whether Zoro's done this before, he doesn't even know if Zoro is that way inclined. Which he is of course, but Sanji doesn't need to know that.

"I'm not into… not… with men." Zoro lies somewhat incoherently through his teeth and drops his hand which was working its way up Sanji's shirt as it rather contradicted his statement.

Sanji just arches an eyebrow at that and straightens up so that he can look Zoro in the eye. He settles his muscled behind right where Zoro both wants him and does not want him right now, Zoro is absolutely certain that is not an accident on Sanji's part.

"Oh really?" Sanji says, the disbelieving tone evident in his voice.

Zoro can only bring himself to nod and bite his lip to hold back this hiss of pleasure as Sanji rolls his hips against Zoro as if to prove the falseness of Zoro's statement.

Okay, he thinks, this line of reasoning has at least halted Sanji. He just needed to make that lie a little more believable. Although how believable he could make a lie to Sanji that he's not attracted to him when the man himself is sitting on Zoro's raging hard-on is questionable.

He squeezes his eyes shut as Sanji grinds into him again and desperately tries to hold back all the sounds that movement elicits from him. He frantically searches his brain for something _anything_ to say. What had anyone said to him ever that had made sure that he'd never find them attractive again? His mind lands on a memory, ah, that certainly made him never want to go near that person again. He snaps his eyes open and looks at Sanji who is quite clearly wearing an expression that says that he's not going to do anything until Zoro stops his ridiculous lie, except perhaps torture him with his body into admitting it.

He stands up suddenly and shoves Sanji off of him hard. Sanji had quite obviously not been expecting that and falls ungracefully on the sand. Zoro shouts the words verbatim and with all the venom that he'd first received them.

"Get off of me you fucking fag!" He yells forcing his frustration and his want into rage in his voice.

Sanji stares up at him from the sand wide eyed and shocked. Zoro forces himself to ignore that the spread of Sanji's legs and the tight fit of his trousers is making his mouth water.

He mentally nods to himself and stomps off to the side to grab his swords and discarded clothes when Sanji comes to his senses and grabs Zoro's arm.

"What the hell Zoro?" He yells, quite justifiably in Zoro's opinion but Zoro keeps the scowl on his face anyway.

"You want this as much as I do, I can tell! And it'd be one thing if you just didn't want _me_ but don't lie about yourself!" Sanji snarls.

Ah. He'd not thought of that. In reality going with 'yes, Sanji, whilst I am into men you specifically are not my type' would have been more believable though no less untrue. But he was stuck with his earlier lie now.

He repeats his previous insult exactly, lacking the conviction behind the words to come up with anything original. He punches Sanji in the face for good measure and runs off into the forest.

He is a little ashamed to admit that he hides in the forest for two days, killing and badly cooking his own food, just so that Sanji doesn't murder him. He figures that Sanji is angry, he would be. He was when he'd had that said to him, and the bastard that spat those hateful words at him hadn't even let him go as far as he'd let Sanji. Goodness only knows how confused and angry Sanji must be, but it was all for the best, Sanji would be mad at him but they'd still be nakama. So he figures that two days to cool off is probably a safe bet. And the island isn't that big anyway, Sanji could find him if he really wanted to.

He strolls out of the forest after taking considerably longer to find the camp than he thought he would. Usopp sees him first and freezes in a way that makes Zoro suspect that something is very wrong. It turns out that the something in question is him.

"Zoro! You're alive!" Usopp whispers when Zoro walks up to the group. Zoro notices the others giving him equally worried and wary looks.

"Of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?" He asks because honestly he's not been able to understand half of the things that Usopp thinks for a long time and he has no idea why the sharpshooter is whispering

"We thought that Sanji might have killed you." Franky points out also in a whisper.

"Yeah, he came storming back the other night with this massive black eye and he was _so angry_. I've never seen him so mad." Usopp confirms quietly.

"What the hell did you two fight about? He's not said a word about it and he's furious! You'd better go apologise or he might just kill you." Nami hisses glaring at him.

"Are you two going to be okay Zoro?" Chopper asks, looking up at Zoro with big worried eyes.

"It's fine Chopper." He insists patting the little reindeer on the head. The others look at him worridly. He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead, he can already feel a headache building there. The others don't need to know the details of their fight, and from the sounds of things Sanji has told them nothing. He doesn't want his nakama to worry after all.

"It was nothing, really. It was just a stupid fight, I was drunk, it didn't mean anything." He answers and opens his eyes. The only person looking at him is Usopp and his face is so filled with fear that it almost confuses Zoro. It takes a second before Zoro senses the presence behind him and turns. The thought suddenly occurs as he is turning, that the others might have been whispering because _Sanji wasn't far away._

Sanji is right in his face and Zoro's brain helpfully notes that Sanji is actually slightly taller than him, not by much but Sanji is using all of that height and rage to tower over Zoro. Zoro spots what is in fact a really nasty looking shiner on the cook's one visible eye which is helpfully open so that Zoro can see the fury burning in it, he must have iced it so it didn't swell. Sanji is shaking with barely contained rage and Zoro actually feels intimidated by him.

"Zoro." Sanji says in a voice so dark and hateful that it seems almost unholy. It contains more venom than any other thing that Sanji has ever said to him, and it's not even an insult, it's his real name. Zoro actually flinches back from that voice and that stare and his body and self preservation instincts take over and he steps aside out of Sanji's way as the cook storms past, not even sparing him a second look.

Everyone else skirts out of Sanji's way and the cook grabs up two large boxes of cooking supplies and about faces and storms back past them again.

Sanji is almost out of sight, heading back to the small now repaired boat to the also apparently repaired ship before anyone speaks.

"That didn't look like just a silly fight to me." Robin says, her voice cold.

Zoro realises that he'd been frozen where he was, like some sort of scared rabbit. He snaps himself out of it and straightens himself up with an embarrassed cough.

"It'll be fine. I'll just… stay out of his way for a while." Zoro mutters, as much to himself as to the others.


	2. Chapter 2

Back aboard the relative safety of the Sunny Zoro was hard at work avoiding Sanji. Every time he saw the man Sanji looked furious and Zoro wanted to wait until that rage had subsided a little bit from the man's frame before dealing with him again. Like many of his plans it could have been great if it were not for one small detail, the detail in this case being that, unlike Brook, Zoro had to eat. And unlike everyone else on the ship that Zoro could have potentially avoided, Sanji was the cook. This unfortunately meant that if Zoro wanted to continue eating at any point in the future he would have to face Sanji. It wouldn't have been so bad if Sanji didn't keep the kitchen locked at night. And yes, he'd checked. And if he didn't know that breaking into said kitchen would only make Sanji madder then he might have considered it. Starving to death was looking pretty good right about now, but he knew that Sanji would never forgive Zoro or himself if that happened regardless of how the cook might feel about him at the moment.

When he does eventually sidle into the galley that night because he doesn't even have the guts to miss a single meal Sanji glares daggers at him but doesn't throw him out. This doesn't quite console Zoro, he wouldn't let his worst enemy go without food. But he says nothing and sits quietly in his seat. Sanji's movements around the kitchen have become sharp, he doesn't bang saucepans down or clatter cutlery because Sanji treats his equipment with more care than that. But he can see the tension in the man's back and the way that his teeth are clamped tightly down on the end of his cigarette.

Sanji puts Zoro's plate down with a little more force than necessary and Zoro might say thank you if he thought that it would do anything other than piss the cook off more. They all eat quietly, even Luffy is hushed under the oppressive atmosphere. Afterwards he slinks out of the kitchen again, feeling as pathetic as a declawed tiger.

"Geez, what did you say to piss him off so much exactly?" Franky asks on deck with a sigh of relief at being out the kitchen.

"It doesn't matter." Zoro answers with a shrug. He doesn't want to tell anyone. He feels bad about what he said but confident that what he did was for the best, even if he could have found a better way to say it.

"It totally matters. What happened?" Franky presses. Zoro glares, he's not in the mood for an inquisition.

"I know it matters, I meant that it's none of your business." He snaps and stomps off feeling sorry for himself.

He's grateful that he has his own bedroom on the Sunny, he's not sure that he could have survived this ordeal in the shared bunkroom of the Merry. He's not entirely sure that Sanji is above kicking Zoro out of his hammock whenever he feels like it in this mood.

That night when he dreams he dreams of Sanji on the beach and what he could have had if he had kept his mouth shut and not said the worst thing that he could think of. When he wakes he's achingly hard and can still feel the ghost of Sanji's fingers and lips and tongue all over him.

He somehow struggles through the next couple of days without Sanji killing him, perhaps on the silent truce that as long as Zoro does not say anything to Sanji or look at Sanji at mealtimes then Sanji won't drive his shoe through Zoro's face. To be honest he'd somehow feel better if Sanji would just kick him, because kicking him would make Sanji less angry and Zoro is desperate for Sanji to be less angry at him. But no, this anger isn't the usual shouting, screaming, kicking rage that he's used to, this anger is silent and deadly and quite honestly very worrying.

Each day at least one member of the crew asks him what happened between him and Sanji, ask what the fight was about or what was said. Zoro tells them nothing at all and he can tell from their persistence at asking him that Sanji must be doing the same.

After a week and a half everyone except Robin has asked and Sanji's anger at Zoro is not fading like the swordsman had hoped. Eventually Robin does come up to him, her arms folded angrily and her face stern.

He eyes her warily from his resting place at the foot of the mast, he doesn't like her when she's angry, especially not when her arms are that close to being crossed. He does still remember what she did to Franky and that wasn't even malicious, Robin is not above hurting people.

"It was nothing." He answers even though she's not said a word and just stood there looking at him.

"That's not true at all." Robin answers with a glower that sends shivers down his spine.

"I'm not going to tell you anything." Zoro says flatly, he figures that it'd best to be upfront in the hope that Robin will go away and not harm him.

"You don't need to." Robin says darkly.

Zoro is about to open his mouth to question that odd response when Robin continues.

"I already know." She adds narrowing her eyes at him.

Zoro feels his jaw drop open and he hastens to close it as he sits upright sharply. Surely Sanji wouldn't have told her, even if he had told anyone surely it wouldn't have been one of his 'lovely ladies'. But Robin could be crafty at prying things out of people, perhaps she managed. The silence stretches on for a few more moments with only the sounds of the waves breaking filling the air around them. He watches her for a moment more and considers his position, Robin is certainly not above lying and he's not going to blab just because she tricked him. He's about to call her a liar when she forges on with her accusation.

"I can't believe that you could say that to him. Sanji is beyond furious, and hurt too. I would have thought that you of all people would know better." Robin snaps. Zoro shrinks back for a moment, the woman can be very menacing at times at it is now that he remembers that she was once an assassin.

"I don't think he told you anything." Zoro says slowly as it occurs to him that whilst everything she said might be true it was _vague_. And Zoro knows that he might not be the sharpest sword out there mentally but he's not by any means _dumb_.

Robin looks shocked for a moment, as if she'd not even thought that he might possibly say that.

"You- you are both so stubborn and pigheaded! I can't believe the pair of you! Why is it that with men the moment sex comes into the equation you all become idiots?" Robin says angrily, her voice getting loud enough to be a shout and Zoro would rather that no one else heard that.

"He told you?" Zoro yelps out of disbelief, he'd thought Robin had been just bluffing! He can't believe that Sanji would open his big mouth! He thought that Sanji might be too angry or to ashamed of the fact that it had been Zoro's lap rather than that of some pretty girl like Robin to say anything. All he knows is that he needs to shut her up right now, the last thing that he wants is Robin yelling precisely what that treacherous Sanji told her where any of the crew could hear her.

After a split second he catches the predatory smile on her face and he realise that he's been well and truly conned.

"No, but you just did. So you may as well tell me the rest before I torture it out of you for your own good." Robin purrs dangerously and crouches down next to him.

"You are evil." He accuses weakly and wonders if she tried this tactic on Sanji first, he wonders if he was the only one dumb enough to fall for it.

"So I've heard. Tell me everything Mr. Swordsman or I might have to hurt you." She smiles sharply.

So he does. He knows that she's determined enough to actually torture him about this and he doesn't trust that the rest of his nakama will be able to resist stopping her either on the basis of curiosity or trying to mend his and Sanji's 'bond'.

So he relents and tells her about him getting drunk when he knew he shouldn't, about Sanji joining him also drunk. He skips some of the details about what exactly Sanji was doing to him but gives her the general picture, not on account for Robin's virtue because he knows that she's not innocent by any means, but because he doesn't want to talk to anyone about it. He doesn't want Robin to know every detail because he considers what he and Sanji had on the beach to be private at the very least, even if he'd been forced to cut it shorter than he really would have liked. And a little part of himself that he doesn't want to think too hard about wants to keep that part of the memory untouched and precious.

Eventually he meekly tells her what he said, although he can't meet her eyes when he repeats it.

Robin's eyebrows shoot up at that before lowering into a scowl.

"Why on earth would you say something like that to him?" She asks in a quiet and dangerous tone of voice. He shifts uncomfortably under her scrutiny but she clearly isn't going anywhere.

"Look, he and I would be a bad idea. We're nakama, and we both need to be on this ship. If something had happened then it'd go terribly wrong sooner or later and one of us would have to leave the ship. So I had to stop him somehow, and, hey it did stop him." Zoro explained rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Robin looked at him levelly for a few moments.

"That." She said after a while, "Is by far the stupidest thing that I've ever heard. Did you not think that what you said to him would be more certain to break your bond as nakama than some half-baked affair you two might have with each other ever would?"

Zoro considered this, at the time he'd not been thinking clearly. Except for that he couldn't allow he and Sanji to go along that path because it could only end in heartbreak and one of them having to leave the Sunny and any chance of them fulfilling their dreams behind.

"They're just words Robin. We fight all the time, this… isn't any different." He answered reluctantly. True, he said the most shocking thing that he could think of at the time, but they were just words. Sanji was forever insulting him, so this was no different.

"You can't believe that's true Zoro, surely?" Robin sighed in exasperation.

Zoro looked over at her crouched on the ground next to him, she probably meant well, but she couldn't understand this situation.

"It's just a fight. He'll calm down eventually. And afterwards when he's forgiven me he won't want to do that again, so it'll stop this happening all over again. Problem solved." He explained feeling sure of his answer.

Robin looked at him strangely and stood up with a huff, she put her hands on her hips and stared fiercely down at him.

"Apologise to him, or you won't be nakama any more. I mean it." Robin ordered and turned on her heel and stalked away angrily.

Zoro shook his head and leant back against the mast with his eyes shut. She was wrong, Sanji would forgive him sooner or later, he always did no matter how hard they fought. Things would go back to the way they were and he'd never have to worry about finding a drunk affectionate Sanji in his lap again.

Zoro resolutely ignored the pang in his gut at that last thought and forced himself to sleep.

Zoro awoke slowly to his chest being shoved about by something hard, for a moment he thought he could feel Sanji's boot heel pressed firmly on his chest above his heart. But instead he opened his eyes to see Usopp prodding him with the flat end of the bristle-less broom from a distance. He scowled and snatched it out of Usopp's hand and thwacked him on the top of the head for good measure.

"What?" He snapped feeling a surge of irritation from nowhere. Usopp flinched back.

"Sanji says it's dinner time and that he'll kill both of us if you don't show." Usopp answered. Zoro grunted and stood up, stretching the kinks in his back out from sleeping against the mast where Robin had left him earlier.

"The stupid cook could have just come and gotten me himself." He pointed out grouchily, his bad mood still clouding his mind for a reason that he couldn't quite place his finger on.

"Only if you wanted him to kill you. I think he's actually getting angrier since your fight, did you say something else to him?" Usopp asked looking sidelong at Zoro with curiosity written clear all over his face as he climbed the steps up to the galley with Zoro not far behind him.

"I've not said a word to him." He replied grouchily. And it was true, he'd remained completely silent around the cook. He knew full well that anything he said to the cook could set the man off so he thought it safer to say nothing until Sanji was in a better mood. But was what Usopp said true? Was the cook angrier than before? It was hard to tell as he spent as little time in the man's company as possible since the incident on the beach, but he didn't think so. Surely people got less angry as time passed after fights, not more. But then again, what did Usopp know about anything?

He shrugged his concerns off and followed Usopp into the galley and sat down silently in his usual seat. Sanji noticed their entrance of course, but said nothing except to huff irritatedly in their direction.

He at in silence but paid careful attention to the conversations swirling around him. The galley had returned to its usual loud state after a few days, there was only so long that the oppressive atmosphere hanging between he and Sanji could dampen the spirits of this crew.

Robin and Nami were discussing a book that they had been reading between them, apparently a murder mystery novel. They had been reading it one chapter at a time, passing it from one to the other and the two girls were in a curious huddle trying to work out who the mysterious murderer was.

Franky and Usopp were discussing a potential alteration to the ship's cola engine, Usopp apparently having had an idea to potentially improve it, Chopper had curiously waded into the discussion by asking whether or not any change might also be applied to Franky himself. Luffy was too busy stuffing food down his mouth to talk and Brook seemed to be trying to out-eat their captain at that point too. Which just left him and Sanji sitting on opposite sides of the table saying nothing to anyone.

Sanji hadn't been entirely silent like Zoro himself had, but he'd not been engaging in conversation with anyone over dinner unless he was directly spoken to. Zoro watched Sanji out of the corner of his eye and tried to gauge whether what Usopp said about Sanji being angrier than before was true.

The blonde was eating his food, not that Zoro had been expecting him to be avoiding it or anything, the cook was too precious about wasting food to do that. But… there was something in the way that he was eating that was strange, something listless and joyless to it. Sanji's shoulders were still taut with tension, a tension that Zoro had expected to start dissipating by now.

If the cook knew that Zoro was looking at him then he didn't say anything or give any indications that he knew. In fact Zoro had been quietly observing the cook for so long that dinner was now over, Usopp's plate was being passed in front of him and grudgingly Zoro put it on top of his own and passed the stack along again.

The room was filled with the quiet chatter and soft clinking of cutlery that came with the of clearing up after the meal. Luffy and Chopper had already bounded off and Franky and Usopp were chatting and slowly making their way to the door.

Normally by now he'd have made his escape from out of Sanji's space but Robin's words still echoed in his ears. Would he and Sanji stop being nakama just because of what he'd said? He needed to find out, no matter how angry Sanji would be.

"It's my turn to wash up." He announced and the rest of the room froze.

Sanji, who was already in the kitchen area of the galley running water into the sink froze with his shoulders high and tense. Nami and Robin paused where they were at the end of the table looking from Zoro to Sanji warily. Robin flashed Zoro a small smile and then quietly led Nami out of the room. Usopp and Franky still hovered where they were though.

"Oh no, don't fight. Not in here, my poor ship…" Franky whimpered. Usopp tried desperately to shush him but it was too late.

"OUT!" Sanji shouted, slamming his hands down on the work surface. Franky and Usopp flinched and ran out of the room with a terrified squeak.

Zoro briefly considered that Sanji might have been directing that 'out!' at him, but he chose to ignore that possibility and stood up calmly and rounded the table to get to Sanji. He had questions damnit and he wasn't going to leave until Sanji gave him an answer.

As he got closer to the cook he noticed that his hunched shoulders were shaking and his knuckles were practically white with how hard he was grabbing the edge of the sink. Zoro was just musing on what to say when Sanji spoke unexpectedly.

"Look." Sanji gritted out, not looking up at Zoro.

"I am _fantastically_ aware of how you feel about me. What you… think of me." He began. Zoro tried to resist rolling his eyes because, really, Sanji didn't. But he wasn't about to correct the cook when he'd gone through so much strife to make sure that nothing could happen between him and the blonde ever again.

"So just… save it. And get out of my kitchen." Sanji ordered, the long curtain of blonde hair obscuring Zoro's view of his face.

Zoro hesitated, Sanji clearly didn't want him there but he still had a question that needed answering.

"Are… are we still nakama?" he asked hesitatingly. He needed to hear Sanji's answer, he needed to be sure that Robin was wrong.

Sanji's head snapped up at that. He turned and suddenly Zoro was confronted with Sanji's menacing blue eye right in his face.

"WHAT?" Sanji snapped so loudly that Zoro actually took an instinctive step back. The cook's fists were balled tightly at his sides and for one irrational moment Zoro worried that Sanji might punch him despite how much he treasured his hands.

"Are you fucking KIDDING me?" Sanji screeched furiously, stepping further into Zoro's space and causing him to take another step backwards.

"I would sooner cut off my own leg and walk around with a goddamn peg leg like that shitty old man than be nakama with YOU." Sanji snarled jabbing Zoro in the chest with a long finger.

"I thought I hated you before but my god I was wrong. I _loathe _you. The one and _only_ reason I've not kicked you overboard is because it'd upset Luffy and I made that man a promise and I'm not about to break it over your dumb ass." The cook hissed, his one visible blue eye narrowing dangerously.

"But do I like you? Are we nakama? Zoro, I assure you, I wouldn't so much as piss on you if you were on fire." Sanji stated, his mouth twisting into a disgusting snarl.

Zoro felt ice flow through his veins. Robin had been right, he'd gone too far and caused precisely what he'd been trying to prevent. Sanji no longer wanted to be nakama anymore! He had to do something.

"Sanji! Please-" Zoro pleaded as he grabbed Sanji's black suited arm.

He didn't even see the kick coming and he wondered vaguely if Sanji had been holding back on him all the time in their fights so far. He most certainly felt the blinding pain erupt in his ribs though, shortly followed by the crash of him hitting the far wall at speed. He crumpled in a heap on the floor and struggled to force his body to breathe.

Finally he choked a breath into his lungs and promptly coughed it straight back out again along with a fair amount of blood. He barely had time to process the shock of what had just happened before a strong hand grabbed at the back of his shirt and he found himself hauled up and face to face with Sanji again.

Had this been a real fight with an enemy he knew that he could cut them in half right now, but Sanji's furious cold blue eye in front of him reminded him that this wasn't some enemy, this was someone who was supposed to be nakama. His hand didn't so much as twitch towards his swords and he allowed himself to hang in Sanji's grip and blood dribbled down his chin.

"Get. Out." Sanji hissed. The cook flung the door open and threw Zoro outside and slammed it loudly after him.

Zoro didn't bother to get up, he didn't care if his nakama thought that he'd just had his arse kicked by the cook. All he could think about was that he'd really screwed up and he needed to fix this and soon, whilst it still could be fixed.


	3. Chapter 3

Zoro is sprawled out on the floor of the crow's nest room in the Sunny, he's completely neglecting his duties as lookout as he can't even see the ocean out of the windows at this angle. He probably wouldn't even spot a ship unless it ran right into them, by which point his lookout duties would be a bit of a moot point.

He's forgone a shirt in favour of the tight bandages around his chest that Chopper gave him, on the basis that bandages and shirts chafe on each other so he'll wear one or the other but not both. And seeing as the only person on the ship who gives him shit for not wearing clothes isn't currently speaking to him then he chooses the bandages.

He tenderly runs a finger over the bandaged section of ribs under his armpit where Sanji's boot connected at unbelievable speed. They hurt but they were only cracked rather than broken, perhaps Sanji had been hiding his speed from Zoro but it seems that Sanji can't manage a kick to be that fast and powerful. Perhaps he was holding back out of concern for him, or perhaps he just didn't want to risk breaking through Zoro's ribs and having to clean bits of lung off of his nice shiny shoes.

He glowers at the ceiling and curses himself for being and idiot and curses Robin even more for being right about the whole thing. He tries to think how on earth he can fix this stupid situation, he can't see Sanji giving him any time to explain himself. He decides that he needs to come up with some kind of clever strategy, but nothing is coming to mind.

He hears the creak of the trapdoor opening and he strains himself to look up enough to see Franky's head appear from it. Zoro finally gives in to the sharp pain emanating from his ribs and flops back on the floor.

"Seeing a lot of ships from down there?" Franky asks sarcastically.

"How many ships have been by?" Zoro enquires flatly. Franky seems to hesitate for a bit before answering.

"Well, none. But-" the shipwright finally answers.

"That is exactly the number of ships that I've seen. I'm an excellent lookout." Zoro smirks at the ceiling. Franky's reluctant chuckle makes him grin even wider.

Franky pulls himself up into the crow's nest proper and flops down on the bench by the window and rests his feet on the bench opposite. He looks out of the window and Zoro feels reassured that at least someone is keeping watch and shuts his eyes.

"So…" Franky begins with a large amount of forced nonchalance, "Sanji seems even angrier than yesterday."

Zoro just grunts at that because he is perfectly aware of Sanji's increasing rage and also aware that it is his fault.

"He even shouted at Nami." The cyborg adds. Zoro's eyes fly open at that because he's not sure that he can even _imagine_ Sanji shouting at Nami in an angry way, he can imagine him shouting declarations of love at her but not snapping at her in anger.

"Shit, the one good thing to come out of this fight and I missed it. What did he say?" He asks wide eyed.

"You didn't hear it? I thought it was loud enough for the entire ship to hear him. He told her to 'get lost and bother someone else' he also called her a 'vicious red-headed harpie' and locked her out of the galley." Franky answers in a solemn tone of voice which is slightly betrayed by the repressed smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I can't believe I didn't see that. I'd pay anything to have seen the look on her face!" Zoro exclaims trying desperately to imagine the shocked outrage on that sea-witch's fine features.

He might admit privately that his dislike for Nami is in equal parts fuelled by her tendency to try and bankrupt him and the way that Sanji lavishes attention on her. Not that he wants to be the cook's mellorine or anything, he certainly doesn't want the cook wiggling like a noodle at him either. But… he does wish that Sanji would pay him half as much attention as he pays Nami, and he wouldn't say no to some of those delicious sounding treats that he makes the girls. He doesn't begrudge Robin so much because she rarely exploits Sanji's fawning for her own purposes the way that Nami does, as if she understands that the cooks affections are precious even if she doesn't care for them herself.

Suddenly the hatch bursts open again and Usopp and Luffy pile into the room as well, Luffy managing to land a foot on Zoro's rather tender chest in his haste to get into the room. He grunts and sits up in an attempt to protect his injuries from his captain's well meaning enthusiasm.

"Sanji's going to talk to Nami!" Luffy declares and rushes to the window to watch the exchange.

"We wanted to be up here where it was safe!" Usopp wails and slides away from the window, as if the navigators rage could kill him by being closer to it.

Zoro scrambles up and peers out the window alongside his captain and watches. Sanji is rounding the corner by the galley and heading up the steps to where Nami is sunbathing on the top deck.

"You know you'll be murdered if either of them catches you spying." Franky states whilst contradictorily craning his own neck to make sure that he can see the scene below them playing out too.

Sanji makes his way over to Nami and Zoro can already see that Nami has spotted the cook by her tense posture and the frown visible atop her sunglasses. Sanji is carrying some kind of fancy drink on a tray, a peace offering if Zoro had to guess, Sanji has gone out there to apologize.

Shoving down the irrational flare of jealousy he watches as Sanji bows before Nami and says something. He has one hand on his chest, over his heart Zoro notices, as he speaks. After a few moments he elegantly hands Nami a drink, she stands up with it and looks at him for a moment before throwing it right in his face. Her face contorts angrily and she's clearly shouting _something_ at him. Zoro notices that he's clenching his fingers so hard into the windowsill that he's leaving marks.

He wants Sanji to snap, to shout at her, to kick her in her stupid face, _anything_. But all Sanji does it brush his wet fringe out of his eyes and nod. He delicately takes the now empty glass off of Nami and turns around and walks off.

Zoro can see the tenseness in Sanji's frame, he's angry but he's still not shouting back at her, he's not doing anything to stand up for himself.

Rage flares through Zoro's belly in sympathy and he flings the hatch open and slides down the mast, completely bypassing the ladder up as it's too slow. He lands on the ground with a thump and runs to the galley completely ignoring Usopp's yell after him. Usopp is saying something sensible like 'wait', but Zoro has no time for sensible, his blood is on fire.

He bursts through the door, thankful that Sanji apparently forgot to lock it after him as he's been doing lately. The cook is bent over the sink washing the traces of drink out of his hair. At his entrance the cook straightens up, towelling his hair dry and turns to see who disturbed him.

"Get out." Sanji orders, his face and voice turning dark when he sees Zoro in the door rather than, say, Nami come to apologise. But he's come to apologise too so he won't be kicked out, not this time.

"No, I need to talk to you." He says shaking his head. Sanji's glare turns icy, a look which is only made nastier by the dark black eye that Zoro gave him the week before still darkening his eye socket. The cook advances on him, but Zoro's learnt his lesson and he darts to the side, putting the table between himself and Sanji and staying out of the cook's reach. If Sanji can't kick him out then he has time to explain himself.

"I didn't mean what I said! I shouldn't have said it." He insists, dodging left and right around the table to evade Sanji.

"Damn right you shouldn't have!" Sanji snarls and leaps over the table to get to him. But Zoro was expecting that and skids under the table and hauls himself out the other side, but Sanji is quick and Zoro only just gets out before the boot hits the floor where his head was only a split second before.

"I panicked! I said the worst thing I could think of so that you'd stop!" he adds scrambling back into a standing position, being stuck on the floor in a fight with Sanji is suicide.

His words seem to have frozen Sanji for a second, half sitting on the table with the heel of his foot still planted on the floor. Zoro can practically feel the flash heat of Sanji's rage like an explosive going off too close for comfort.

"TO MAKE ME STOP?" Sanji screeches clearly enraged.

"What the fuck did you think I was going to do to you? Force you? I'm not some- What exactly do you think of me?" Sanji rages, swinging a kick for Zoro's face. Zoro leaps behind the counter in a panic.

"Ah! That's not what I meant! That's not what I meant!" He yelps, Sanji's rage is starting to get frightening now and the cook is still advancing on him.

"I meant- I just- ah!" He tries again but is forced to duck as Sanji flings a wooden container used to hold cutlery at dinner at his face. It explodes on the wall behind Zoro.

"I needed to stop you! So that we could still be nakama!" He yells and dashes out of the way as a well aimed napkin ring skims his cheekbone and dents the wooden panelling behind him.

"I didn't mean what I said, I just panicked, I needed to tell you something that would make you want to stop. You were making it really difficult to think straight!" Zoro adds holding his hands up defensively as Sanji advances on him. Panic spreads through him as he realises that Sanji's managed to back him up into a corner with no easy escape, not unless he feels like vaulting over a lit stove or hiding on top of the fridge to his left.

"So this is MY fault?" Sanji rages clearly not understanding.

"No! Well- no, no it's not!" Zoro hastily corrects himself. Sanji isn't exactly in the mood for Zoro to point out that he was being irresponsible and that if he'd wanted to sort their situation out rather than taking offence then he could have easily found him when he was hiding in the woods. He doesn't think that Sanji is up for the nuanced grey tones of blame that are really in this situation right now.

"I couldn't break my promise or stop you from going to All Blue! It's too important!" He exclaims as Sanji's hand lands on his neck and pins him to the wall.

Zoro has a split second to remember that Sanji takes damn good care of his precious hands and that with everything in this kitchen Sanji could doubtlessly de-bone him as easily as one of the sea monsters that he brings the cook sometimes.

"What?" Sanji asks with shades of puzzlement colouring his anger and the hand on Zoro's neck doesn't tighten but doesn't release either.

"You… you hate me. At the best of times we don't get on. So I couldn't let it go any further, I had to stop you. And I figured if I made sure that you'd never want to go anywhere near me like that again then we'd be okay. Because if you didn't then we wouldn't sleep together and then fight and then not be nakama anymore!" he explains hurriedly.

Sanji's brow furrows for a few moments.

"That didn't make any sense. Start again, slowly. And this had better be good." Sanji orders, tightening his grip slightly to prove his point.

"You're making it a little hard to breathe." Zoro points out hoping that Sanji will let him go, he could probably get out of this hold unscathed, but he doesn't especially want to break Sanji's arm.

"Deal with it. Start talking or I start strangling you." Sanji snaps. Zoro squeezes his eyes shut and tries to organise his thoughts, he's only going to get one shot at this.

"I… We both need Luffy. You and I both need him to get us to where we need to go. We've both got these stupidly impossible dreams, you need to find All Blue and I need to find Mihawk again and beat him." He starts slowly, Sanji quirks an eyebrow as if to say '_and?_'

"Luffy's probably the only person crazy and brilliant enough to make it all the way to One Piece, and I bet you that All Blue is up there too, right along with Mihawk. If either one of us were to get off of this ship then we'd lose any chance that we had to fulfil our dreams." He continues.

"What does that have to do with any of this?" Sanji growls, his hand still tight on Zoro's throat.

"We need to be nakama to both be on this ship, it won't work otherwise. One of us would have to leave if we weren't. You really think we could make it all the way to Raftel like this?" Zoro points out, looking pointedly at the hand on his throat. Sanji opens his mouth to speak but he cuts him off again.

"If… If I'd let the other day go any further then it would have ended badly. Maybe not right then but sooner or later. You can't stand me, and you drive me nuts. Anything that we started would end with us not being nakama, and I couldn't let that happen. I can't let you sacrifice your dream and I can't break my promise. So I did what I had to do and said the worst thing I could think of to stop you." He explains.

Sanji's face goes blank for a moment, and the hand on Zoro's neck slackens slightly. He feels hopeful for a moment before Sanji's fist connects with his eye, he can't even escape because suddenly the hand on his neck is a _lot_ tighter.

"How DARE you!" Sanji snarls, his fist is drawn back again and Zoro is expecting another punch, although he's shocked that Sanji punched him at all and wonders if the man's fist is okay. Especially as Sanji pauses to shake his hand out and hisses at his red knuckles.

"How DARE you make that kind of decision for me! You can't _do_ that! It's my choice to make damnit, not yours!" Sanji snaps tightening his grip again.

Zoro tries to speak but Sanji is now quite effectively crushing his windpipe, so he squeaks out a breath and pulls at Sanji's hand as stars start to appear before his eyes. Sanji releases him and Zoro slumps to the side against the fridge and gasps for air.

When his vision returns properly he can see Sanji standing there staring darkly at him.

"That's the dumbest thing that I've ever heard. And how dare you!" Sanji adds angrily.

"Yeah, you mentioned that." Zoro rumbles, his voice feeling gravely.

"Well, it needs mentioning! You can't just make a decision like that for me, I mean, fine if you wanna decide to be all solitary but don't just make some shit up to suit yourself! You could have just said that you didn't like me!" Sanji snaps, jabbing a finger in Zoro's chest.

"Yeah, well you try coming up with a clever answer when you've got a hot blonde wriggling about in _your_ lap! I just said the worst thing I could think of!" Zoro snaps back.

He realises his mistake when Sanji's eye widens in surprise, he blames the lack of oxygen going to his brain when Sanji was strangling him for his verbal slip up. He didn't want Sanji to know anything about what he wanted, he'd hoped that Sanji would have been able to put his reactions on that night on the beach down to him being drunk and Sanji just being damn good at what he was doing. Which, judging by the look of surprise on Sanji's face that was now mutating into smugness was what had happened until now.

"I _knew_ it! I knew that you wanted me that night! I knew it wasn't just the booze!" Sanji squawks triumphantly.

"No, I don't. Honest, it was just… a figure of speech. And also the booze." Zoro hastily corrects, but Sanji is onto him now.

"Oh really?" the blonde says quirking an eyebrow, giving Zoro flashbacks from that night on the beach when he was trying to protest the same sort of thing.

"Really." He insists solemnly.

"Look me in the eyes and say that." Sanji says, with his voice like silk and steel. Sanji steps forward and presses himself against Zoro, resting his hands on Zoro's bare chest. He suddenly finds himself incredibly aware of how shirtless he is with Sanji pressed up against him like that and wishes that he'd chosen to wear a shirt instead of Chopper's stupid bandages.

"How can I do that when I can only see the one, stupid haired love-cook?" Zoro challenges, trying to force the bite into his voice instead of focusing on the water dripping down Sanji's hair and sliding along his chin where he washed the juice out of his hair over the sink earlier.

Sanji doesn't rise to Zoro's taunt and instead patiently gives Zoro a challenging look, he knows that look, that's Sanji's classic 'I can wait all day for this, but you _will_ break' look. He tries to focus on denial instead of staring at the bead of water gathering in what passes for a pathetic excuse for facial hair on Sanji's chin. The droplet of water hangs there for a moment before breaking free and falling on Zoro's chest. He squeezes his eyes shut, Sanji clearly isn't going anywhere and getting the cook off- ah, shoving the cook _away_ from him is only going to confirm Sanji's suspicions. He needs to lie, and properly this time.

"I'm not attracted to you. The other night on the beach was just a… drunken mistake. It was just physical, nothing to do with it being you at all." He insists calmly as he stares at Sanji's stupid goatee/beard/thing.

Focus… focus. Keep a neutral expression. Stare at the stupid beard-thing.

"Oi, Marimo. My eyes are up here." Sanji points out with a smirk curling at the edge of the cook's generous lips and Zoro's eyes instantly latch onto the cook's gorgeous mouth. Zoro fights down the mental image that comes with Sanji's statement because he knows all the places on Sanji that he _could_ be staring at right now to earn that sentence. He drags his eyes up to Sanji's because anything is less distracting than staring at the man's mouth.

"As I said," he repeats, looking into Sanji's big blue eye, "no… attraction. At all." He mutters, forcing himself to breathe steady.

It'd be a lot easier to breathe normally if he hadn't had about a million dreams start out with Sanji pinning him to the kitchen wall just like this. Or rather, just like this but without the verbal inquisition. It'd also be a lot easier to breathe normally if Sanji wasn't working those long dexterous fingers along his collarbones right about now.

"You're a terrible liar." Sanji hums.

"I… I don't know what you mean." He stammers out because Sanji has just pressed himself even closer to Zoro and unless Sanji is carrying around some pretty strange things in his pockets these days then Sanji has thought about pinning him to this wall before as well. Or at the very least he's thinking about it now.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries desperately to ignore the feel of Sanji against his hip because he know that not doing so will most certainly cause the same reaction in him and this _can't happen_. He can't let this happen between Sanji and himself for reasons that he just went to great length to explain earlier whilst being partially strangled.

If he had kept his eyes open perhaps he would have been better prepared for what Sanji did next. The first he was aware of it was when Sanji's voice said right into his ear:

"Not convincing at all."

And that was all the warning he got before Sanji latched onto his ear. Just as he had on the beach that night, Sanji got all of Zoro's earrings into his mouth and started using his wicked tongue at the part where his skin met metal.

What wasn't even fair was that Zoro had no idea that having someone suck on his ear was this arousing, it made no sense for it to be and he doubted that this was some sort of Sanji-specific kink. But somehow Sanji had known right away and was now massively exploiting this weakness for his own evil ends.

What was worse was that by the sounds Zoro could hear himself making anyone would guess that Sanji had bent down and started giving him a blowjob rather than simply doing obscene things to his earrings with his tongue.

"Aaah, fuck. Sanji!" were the first words that Zoro could manage to force out, they were supposed to be a protest but it came out sounding more like a request.

He can feel Sanji's smile on his ear, all toothy and sharp. Mercifully the cook stops his assault on Zoro's ear but not so mercifully tangles one hand in the hair on the back of Zoro's head and tugs backwards just hard enough to dance along that pleasure/pain line and start biting and licking his way along Zoro's throat.

Zoro's well aware that this is a bad idea but he's losing the will to tell Sanji as such. He's also very acutely aware that he's arching his back into Sanji as if any part of him that isn't touching the cook might catch on fire.

He needs to tell Sanji to stop, he can't risk either of them losing their dreams but Sanji is so damn talented at what he's doing that Zoro knows that if he says nothing now then he never will.

"Stop, please." He manages in a voice so quiet that he's hardly sure he spoke at all. But Sanji pauses, his fingers releasing Zoro's hair.

"Admit it." The cook pants against Zoro's neck.

"Fine. Just… this is a bad idea." Zoro concedes because, really, it's hard to deny that you're attracted to someone when you've just been shoved up against a wall by them and been panting and moaning the whole time.

Sanji pulls away and leans shakily on his arm which is planted just by Zoro's head. He straightens up slightly and Zoro marvels silently at the cook's scarlet cheeks and the pupil in his eye blown so wide by desire that there's barely any blue there anymore. Privately Zoro wonders what it would be like to make Sanji look like that whenever he wanted, but he quickly shoves down those treacherous thoughts.

"You're right. This… isn't smart." Sanji breathes, casting a slow look at Zoro's chest.

"I'm still mad at you for what you said moss-brain, and for trying to make my choices for me. So switching rage to lust probably isn't the best idea." He continues.

Logically Zoro completely agrees with Sanji, so he nods and says nothing about how he'd much rather trip the cook up and pounce on him on the kitchen floor and make him scream his name. That… would be counterproductive at best.

"I'm… going to go jump in the ocean now." He states flatly.

"Probably for the best." Sanji agrees, looking pointedly at Zoro's trousers.

"We have a cold shower available though you know." The cook adds with a touch of confusion.

"I know. I was going to let you have that, since you still smell like pineapple." Zoro grins and escapes the kitchen before Sanji can lay a finger on him.

"Gee. Thanks for that!" Sanji yells after him sarcastically.


	4. Chapter 4

The crew clearly noticed the sudden drop in tension and violence between there cook and their swordsman, dinner that night was loud and boisterous. But no one said anything about the apparent truce, Zoro wondered if they were afraid of breaking such a potentially fragile thing. He knew that he certainly was. Sanji had been, well, more than affectionate to him earlier. But as the cook himself had said, he was still mad at him and converting rage into lust was probably inadvisable. More worryingly the cook hadn't assured Zoro that they were nakama again, which left him feeling on edge.

Sanji hadn't really spoken to him, but he hadn't been silent at meals anymore and the terrible steely tension in the man's muscles was gone leaving the man moving in his astonishingly flexible way again. He was even fawning over his precious ladies again, although Nami was steadfastedly refusing his affection even if she wasn't refusing the treats that he presented them both.

The next day Sanji seemed even more relaxed still. Zoro was in the middle of doing a particularly gruelling set of crunches on deck when Sanji casually strolled out onto the walkway by the galley and swung his legs over the railing to sit balanced on it.

He froze mid-crunch and watched as the cook lit up a smoke and sighed happily as he tilted his head back with his eyes closed and sunned himself in the mid-afternoon glow. Zoro steadfastedly ignored the painful trembling of his abs protesting at holding him like that for so long and opted to stare at the cook. He really was attractive, there was a reason that the man had been gracing his dreams and fantasies for the last year. Hell, he wasn't sure that he'd actually dreamt of anyone else in bed with him since he'd met the blonde, as pathetic as that was. But really, it was hard for anyone else to compete with the fire that the cook had, his strength and will alone were attractive enough without the added knowledge of just how flexible and deadly Sanji was adding fuel to the fire of his lust.

He'd not realised that he'd missed seeing the cook happy and content, but the past week of Sanji's stone cold rage had disturbed Zoro more than he liked to admit. So it was perfectly normal for him to try and soak up as much of the vision of a happy Sanji as he could.

He was too busy studying the line of Sanji's exposed throat to notice the cook's one visible eye sliding open slightly, a mistake that in a fight with the cook could cost him his life. Thankfully Sanji wasn't trying to kill him, or at least not with violence, perhaps with a heart attack though.

"What're you staring at Marimo?" Sanji asked with the same sharp teasing tone that he always used when starting a fight with him. That tone actually sent flutters through Zoro's already straining stomach, he couldn't stand Sanji being angry at him forever and felt glad that apparently Sanji was forgiving him as the cook hadn't done this at all when he was angry at him.

"Nothing! Definitely not you curly-brow!" He shot back childishly and flopped back on the grass underneath him. He grinned up at the sails like a moron when Sanji's laugh floated over to him, he supposed that Sanji missed their arguments too. He heard Sanji retreat to the kitchen to finish dinner and Zoro decided that right here in the warm sun was a perfect place to sleep.

That afternoon the crew was eating dinner earlier than usual because Nami had predicted that they would be landing at the next island about when tea-time was normally held. They all knew better by now than to doubt her skills of navigation and prediction so they ate when they were told.

As predicted they landed at the same sort of time that they'd normally be eating, Nami was left to watch the ship and Zoro took the chance to gladly escape from the woman's icy glare. Clearly she'd been unhappy with him and her prolonged stony silence in Sanji's direction was making him uncomfortable and the cook obviously more so. He found himself wondering if he'd done anything to personally offend the navigator, she was seeming especially hostile to him as well as Sanji.

The rest of the crew disembarked from the ship and were all peacefully walking together to the town in the distance. Sanji hadn't brought his shopping cart with him for once, operating under the assumption that at this time of night all of the shops were likely to be shut.

"What kind of town do you think this is going to be?" Chopper asks as the crew walk up the dirt path together, his little voice ringing with curiosity.

"It looked quite small when we sailed past the island earlier, I would say that it's probably a small town, agricultural perhaps." Robin says thoughtfully. They were climbing a large hill that was currently obstructing their view of the village, but from what Zoro can remember of his view from the ship Robin is right.

"My village was quite small, but even if it hadn't have been all the villagers would have known my name. The great Captain Usopp!" Usopp boasts to the starry eyed Chopper.

"Really?" Chopper asks, his eyes wide with wonder. Usopp's arm is flung out, gesturing to his apparently wide audience, never mind the fact that his audience only consists of Chopper. Franky, Luffy and Robin are walking at the front of the group and aside from a glance at the sharpshooter they hardly pay his story any mind. Sanji is walking at his side with his eyes shut and his hands folded behind his head, he finds himself wondering if the cook is following the sound of his nakama's voices or whether his talented feet are leading him where he needs to go. It's certainly possible that the cook could do that, he knows better than to doubt Sanji's body. And with that thought he decides to drag his eyes and mind away from Sanji and destroy Usopp's story instead.

"It's true, they all knew him." Zoro confirms with a nod. He doesn't even need to look to see Usopp's broad smile at having his story confirmed to the wide eyed Chopper.

"But I seem to remember them all shouting 'stupid kid' and 'that damn Usopp-brat' after him." He adds with a dark grin.

Luffy bursts out in laughter at that, as do a few of the others. And since only he, Nami and Luffy had got the chance to see Usopp's village he feels that it is his duty to pop any of Usopp's tall tales about his past for his nakama.

"Hahah, yeah! Remember they chased him out of the town every morning for lying?" Luffy guffaws loudly, Usopp's face falls at this. Evidently this isn't the past that he wants people to believe that he has.

"Hey, it was a sacred ritual! I held that town together!" The sharpshooter protests amid more laughter from the others.

Their teasing of Usopp is brought to a halt as the group reaches the peak of the hill to see the sprawling green valley unfold below them with the buildings of the village embedded into its side along with picturesque winding paths and quaint little fields. A general hum of appreciation is given at the beauty of the little hillside town as the Straw hat pirates collectively take a few moments to take in the scenery.

Zoro turns around to look back where they had come, he can still see the ship at the shore in the distance. He tries to ignore the fact that Sanji is right behind him and clearly in his line of sight with his eyes open now. He tries instead to focus on the wonderful sunset scattering orange light across the ocean. And despite his attempts to not look at Sanji he can't help but notice that the setting sun casts an attractive red shine on his hair and the man's pale skin. He notices Sanji looking at him thoughtfully and realises that he's probably been looking at the cook a little longer than is polite.

"I need to talk to you. Alone." Sanji says flatly, casting a look at their nakama behind Zoro.

Zoro doesn't even need to turn to see the fact that the rest of his crewmates have frozen at the cook's words, clearly wary of another fight between himself and Sanji breaking out again. Sanji raises his stupid curly eyebrow at the others as if to say 'well?' and the others quickly make themselves scarce with a few muttered encouragements to Zoro's health and luck before scampering away. He does resent the somewhat smug laugh from Usopp who clearly thinks that this is some sort of celestial payback for Zoro ruining his lies.

He watches the cook carefully, his blue eyes aren't currently focused on him but rather on their retreating nakama, presumably gauging whether or not they're out of earshot yet. The cook doesn't look angry, but he doesn't look calm either. He feels anxious, he'd never sure lately what Sanji is up to. Just yesterday the cook swung from trying to kill him to holding against a wall and ravishing him. Sanji seemed to be less likely to kill him now but Zoro wasn't sure and he didn't like the ominous words that Sanji had dismissed the others with.

"Nosey bastards." Sanji mutters, rolling his eyes before turning back to face Zoro properly.

Zoro feels panic rise up in his chest, he has to think of something to say. Is Sanji about to rip his head off having properly considered how mean he was? Or is it going to be some conversation about how he has irreparably damaged their nakamaship? He needs to say something smart, he needs to let Sanji know his intentions damnit! But the only thing that his brain is coming up with besides a muted prayer that Sanji doesn't kill him is to notice that the orange sunlight has turned Sanji's bright blue eyes into a muted sea green. And whilst the observation that Sanji and green go well together might be an interesting and possibly symbolic thought it's not too helpful at thinking up clear and helpful answers.

"Uhh…" He manages. He cringes inwardly at that, that's not quite what he'd been going for.

"Tch, I had to get rid of them. I didn't exactly want an audience for this. You didn't have anything that you wanted to do did you?" Sanji asks, apparently concerned that Zoro has some sort of mysterious plan for his evening in a town that he knows nothing about.

"Uh, no. I'm… good." Zoro offers awkwardly, feeling unsure as to where he stands with the cook.

"So." Sanji says in what Zoro frankly considers an unenlightening way. Sanji leans back against a large tree at the side of the dirt road and lights his cigarette.

Zoro squeezes his eyes shut, he needs to think clearly and Sanji apparently isn't intending on getting to the point any time soon. He doesn't know if the cook is trying to drag this out torturously or whether he's just oblivious but clearly he's going to be the one to get them back on topic.

"So are you still furious with me then?" He asks gruffly, if Sanji is going to start a fight then he wants it over with.

Sanji gives him a slow look, his eyes relaxed and half lidded. He tilts his head up and exhales a smooth stream of smoke out from between his lips. Sanji looks back at him again and inhales again on his cigarette, the tip flaring cherry red briefly.

"After consideration, I'd say no. I'm annoyed at you, but I don't exactly want to drown you now." He answers with a sly grin curling at the edge of his lips.

"We're still nakama then?" Zoro asks, this was the all important question after all. This was the one thing that this whole mess had been about. He had to know.

"Despite the fact that you clearly have moss for brains, yes. We're still nakama." Sanji tuts feigning indifference but Zoro can see the semi suppressed smile tugging at Sanji's lips.

Zoro palpably feels the tension wash out of him in one smooth go, it feels utterly fantastic. He didn't even know that he'd been carrying this much stress in his muscles until now.

"I am annoyed that you tried to make my decision for me, and I've come to my own decision. And unlike you I'm going to tell you about it and not con you into going along with it." Sanji continues pointedly.

"Decision?" Zoro asks raising an eyebrow. He has no idea what the cook is talking about. What was to be decided? He had messed up when he should have just have explained his worries to Sanji but now Sanji had forgiven him pretty much and everything was fine. What else needed to be said or decided?

"I think that you're wrong, I think that you and I are a very good idea. I think that you and I should get together." Sanji says with almost a thoughtful tone to his voice.

The blonde pushes himself away from the tree and stands squarely in front of Zoro, he leans forward and presses his index finger against Zoro's sternum. Zoro manages to restrain himself from reacting to the jolt that Sanji's touch sends through his system.

"And don't even try to say that you're not attracted to me, because I think that you and I have disproved that enough already." Sanji adds, apparently thinking that was going to be Zoro's next line of argument.

Truthfully Zoro hadn't been thinking about what to say, his brain had gone completely blank. He'd not expected this at all.

"I thought I told you that this was a bad idea, that we can't risk everything for no good reason." He says gawping at Sanji. What was the cook even thinking? Hadn't he made the stakes clear enough? Their nakamaship, his dream, Sanji's dream, their promises to Luffy?

"And I'm telling you that I disagree." Sanji says simply, as if it was something obvious. The cook cocks his head at Zoro and smiles charmingly as he takes another small step closer, Zoro ignores the treacherous flutter in his gut and tries to focus.

"No. This is a bad idea, it's not worth it. And besides, I don't do one night stands." He says flatly, stepping away from the cook. He can just imagine it now, he'd give in and Sanji would drag him into bed and be without a doubt better than he'd ever dreamed of. But he knew the cook, he just wanted him because it was the opposite of what he wanted and once he won he'd be gone and Zoro would find an empty bed the next morning and a broken heart to boot. The idea of giving in to someone just for one night had never appealed, the idea of being abandoned the next day was just too sharp to make the temptation worth it and he wasn't about to start now.

He felt almost angry that Sanji could be willing to risk everything, and for what? Some quick sexual relief? How was that a good idea? Didn't he value either of their dreams at all? And didn't he value their apparently tenuous relationship? What they had was strange but it _worked_, was Sanji really willing to risk all that?

"Who said anything about a one night stand? I doubt that you and I could get out everything that we feel for each other in one night, or at least I couldn't anyway." Sanji says with a lewd grin.

Zoro doesn't reply, he can't even think of anything to say. Surely the cook isn't saying what it sounds like he's saying? He just stares mutely at the cook until he speaks again.

"And seriously? No one night stands? Not ever? I find that hard to believe, everyone has one night stands sometimes." Sanji says looking at Zoro suspiciously.

"I don't. Not ever." Zoro says flatly, feeling a little insulted at the idea actually. Sanji's visible eyebrow climbs up his forehead in surprise and Zoro's irritation rises a little more.

"What? Seriously? So, wait… you've never had sex with anyone that you've not been in a relationship with? How many people have you had sex with? I mean, you _have_ had sex right?" The cook asks disbelievingly, as if Zoro had claimed that he was doing something impossible like never eating food in his entire life or something.

"Of course I've had sex. And no, I don't sleep with people unless I'm… involved with them. And the fact that you find that so hard to believe says a lot more about you than it does me." He snaps back, feeling a little defensive about his sexual history and almost a little irrationally jealous at Sanji's. He can't help but wonder how many people Sanji has slept with, how many beds had Sanji graced only to be gone when the other person awoke?

"Hey, I don't make a habit of it or anything. Anyway, you've still not answered me about us." The cook points out apparently unwilling to take offence at his retort.

"Sure I did, I said no. This is still a bad idea." Zoro mutters and walks past Sanji. He decides to head down to the villiage below and clear his head. Even though Sanji seems to be offering more than just one night he's not convinced that the cook will actually hold to that.

Naively he figures that Sanji might have a little respect for his ending of the conversation and not follow him, after all he knew that if someone had rejected him as definitively as he'd just done that he'd walk away. But Sanji is clearly different, the cook only waited a beat before leaping one long stride and falling into step beside him.

"Okay, well I can't make your decision for you, unlike _some_ people." Sanji adds shooting Zoro a half hearted mean look.

"But I'm sure that you'll change your mind. Just let me know when you do." He continues and takes another long drag on his cigarette.

"What makes you so sure?" Zoro snorts at Sanji's overconfidence and tries to walk a little faster. Sanji however just lengthens his stride a little and manages to keep up easily. Zoro gives up and slows back to a comfortable pace, there was no chance in outrunning anyone with legs like Sanji's.

"Tch, how could you possibly resist this? I already know that you want me, you're practically putty in my very talented hands. It's just a matter of time until you crack." Sanji smirks stroking a line down his chest.

"I managed fine this whole time, I'm sure I'll cope." Zoro says rolling his eyes. He doesn't especially like Sanji's boastful self-confidence in this matter, nor the fact that he had almost been putty in the cook's hands in the kitchen and on the beach.

"I'm sure. But I feel the need to inform you that as good as I look in a suit I look even better with nothing on. Think about it." Sanji adds with a lewd grin.

"I didn't need that mental image thank you." Zoro replies rubbing a hand over his eyes. And honestly, he doesn't. Although he refrains from saying that this is because his brain had been entertaining mental images of the cook naked and willing since about five seconds after they first met.

Zoro is a little relieved when they arrive at the small village and go their separate ways. He is however naïve to assume that Sanji would get bored of tormenting him. Zoro quickly finds out that Sanji has decided to devote a rather large amount of his time to tempting, taunting and teasing Zoro in an attempt to weaken his resolve on the whole matter of him and Sanji being a bad idea.

It starts out the next day so innocuously at first that Zoro suspects that he might be imagining it. It was an especially hot day on their first day back at sea after the island on which Sanji had essentially propositioned him, half of the crew had spent the morning leaping overboard whenever it got too hot, including those members of the crew that couldn't swim. Even Robin had cautiously climbed down a rope over the edge of the ship and let the ship drag her through the cool sea under Sanji and Franky's watchful and slightly perverted eyes. Sanji had stripped off his nice shirt and waistcoat and carefully toed off his shoes and leapt in the sea once Robin was safely back on board. He had emerged glistening and glinting in the sunlight as the water ran down his bare chest, his black trousers even clung to him temptingly. Zoro had thought it accidental until Sanji, who was clearly aware that Zoro was staring, stretched temptingly and winked at him. He _winked_ at him like some stupid blonde haired coy tempting… gah.

After that he's a little more suspicious of any Sanji-related eye candy, entirely aware that it's probably being carefully orchestrated by Sanji. In the past when his thoughts about Sanji were a secret he would have been secretly pleased about Sanji taking up sunbathing on the deck in his free time, but now he knew it was a trap and tried to ignore the way the cook's lithe body stretched invitingly in the sun. He ignored the temptation to lean over the cook's practically naked body and kiss and lick his way along every exposed inch of skin. Instead he focuses on weight training and lots of swimming in the cold ocean.

Five days of studiously ignoring Sanji's flaunting later Sanji manages to trick him. He'd wandered into the kitchen some time after dinner and carefully inspected Sanji's cupboard with booze in, his eyes had landed on one of his favourite brands of sake which was both strong and delicious. Sanji was in the kitchen drinking his way through a bottle of wine alone and as he hadn't made any moves in Zoro's direction he assumed that he was safe. He was wrong.

His first mistake is not questioning the sudden appearance of a previously non-existent bottle of his favourite booze appearing in Sanji's booze stash which he certainly would have noticed if it had been there the day before. His second mistake is thinking that since Sanji was apparently not playing the 'seduce Zoro' game right now that it was okay to sit on a bar stool by the kitchen counter and drink with Sanji.

"So." Sanji says thoughtfully as he tops up his wine glass.

"This whole 'seduce you by being generally sexy in your presence' thing doesn't seem to be working." He continues.

"Finally." Zoro sighs feeling relieved that Sanji's slow torture will apparently be ending. He takes another gulp of his sake, enjoying the slow burn in his throat.

"So I wanted to try something different." Sanji adds. Zoro groans unhappily, he was hoping that Sanji would realise that his attempts at wooing him were fruitless and give up.

"I want you to tell me more about your boyfriends. Well, either you tell me or I ravish you until you give in and let me be included in the previous category." The cook declares, his blue eye sparkling with mischief.

"Or," Zoro suggests, standing up. "I could leave."

He is just picking up his booze when Sanji speaks again in a leisurely tone, as if he has all the time in the world and knows that Zoro is going nowhere.

"Sure, as long as you're happy to concede that you're unable to resist my charm. After all, if you were strong enough to resist my advances you'd be perfectly able to stay, no?" Sanji grins catlike at him.

Zoro freezes. He's not dumb, he can see what Sanji is doing. He's trying to appeal to his pride by insinuating weakness on his part in order to make him tell him what he wants to know or succumb to Sanji's body. And the cook wasn't even doing it especially subtly either. But still, he knows that if he leaves Sanji will crow about it endlessly and then continue his relentless onslaught of teasing and flirting. And there's no guarantee that the cook won't follow him if he leaves either, and seeing as there are only so many places to hide on a ship in the middle of the ocean he is potentially trapped with the cook.

"Just so you know, I'm not falling for that." He says sternly and sits down in his seat again.

"Oh?" Sanji asks curiously, his eyebrow wiggling suggestively.

Zoro screws his eyes shut and takes another drink in place of answering Sanji prompt, ignoring the fact that alcohol is what had gotten him into this whole stupid situation in the first place.

"So you're going to tell me?" Sanji says looking obviously pleased and giving Zoro his full attention which, if Zoro is honest, makes his skin tingle a little. The cook is always so busy trying to tend to so many people that it feels nice to be the only thing that he's concerned with for once.

"No." He says flatly and has another drink. He might be more obsessed with the cook's person and the fact that he's paying attention to him than is advisable but he's not just going to tell him everything he wants just because of that.

"Then you're agreeing to my offer of carnal and romantic bliss?" Sanji asks sounding surprised and possibly even more pleased than before.

"No." Zoro asserts firmly. Because he has to be especially firm on that point, he is well aware that his willpower in the face of Sanji, especially a Sanji determined to get in his pants, is impressive but finite. There was only so long that he would be able to be sane and resist Sanji before he would think 'oh fuck it' and then do just that to Sanji.

"You have to do one or the other." Sanji pouts, prodding Zoro with a long finger.

"No way, dart-brow." He shoots back, swatting the blonde's finger away from him.

"Do I have to make the decision for you and get naked? I'll do it, I swear." Sanji threatens and reaches for the buttons on his shirt. Zoro's eyes widen, this is veering dangerously into the 'breaking his willpower' territory and after this last week he's only got so much of that left. Not that he'd let the cook know that of course, it'd only encourage him more.

"Stop that! Why do you even want to know anyway?" he says hurriedly grabbing the cook's hands and pulling them towards his wine and not his shirt.

"Because you're fascinating and I want to understand you. I always have, although knowing whether or not I should be jealous of your former boyfriends is a more recent development." Sanji answers with a lopsided smile and a cheeky sparkle in his eyes, Zoro ignores the flash of heat inside his belly at that.

"Boyfriends really isn't the right word." Zoro mutters ducking his head down and staring at his reflection in his sake. It really was the wrong word, boyfriend as a word implies that they had a certain level of fondness for him that really isn't accurate in his situation.

"Hm, semantics. So spill it marimo before I call you on your stalling. Start at the beginning." Sanji tuts and kicks Zoro's chair.

Zoro spares Sanji a glare but the cook is infuriatingly cool and simply sips from his glass of wine and fixes Zoro a determined look. Zoro knows that look, Sanji doesn't give up after that look. Perhaps if he just tells the cook some of what he wants to know then he'll let this thing go.

"I was fifteen. He was a bastard and I'm not going to talk about him." Zoro says tersely.

"What was his name?" Sanji asks tilting his head curiously, apparently ignoring Zoro's veto on talking about him further.

"Judas. I suppose it was dumb to trust someone with such a significant name, but I did. Betrayer was fitting." Zoro says with a sigh, he supposes that there's no harm in telling Sanji the bastard's name.

Sanji stares inscrutably at his wineglass for a few moments before speaking.

"He was your first? Sexually I mean?" the cook asks in a vague voice. Zoro sighs and nods and with little thought takes another rather large gulp of his drink. He tries not to recall his memories of Judas, especially those particular memories.

"Please tell me it was consensual. Luffy'd probably be upset if I steered us off course to hunt this bastard down if it wasn't." Sanji said in a light voice that belies the steely look in his eyes and the tight grip on his wineglass. Zoro stares at him for a second before laughing, he can see that Sanji was actually serious about that and for a silly reason that makes him laugh and feel inordinately happy.

"God, no. I mean, yes, it was consensual. Dumbest decision of my life, but yeah." He laughs as the evil look melts from Sanji's fine features. A small relieved smile flits across the blonde's face momentarily.

"You really won't tell me about him? Why was he such a bastard?" Sanji presses curiously and watches Zoro carefully out of the corner of his eye.

"I- no. If it's any consolation I'll tell you about the other one." Zoro says conceding to Sanji's desperate desire to know completely pointless facts about his past. But he won't talk any more about Judas. Some things from the past should stay in the past and he has absolutely no desire to risk mixing his memories of _him_ with Sanji.

"The other one? You mean that there are only two? You've only had two boyfriends?" Sanji gawps openly at him.

"I told you boyfriend isn't-" he says, beginning to protest but Sanji cuts him off.

"Lovers, partners, significant-whatevers. The point is, only two? Seriously? Even I've had more boyfriends than that and that's excluding an entire gender from my dating history! You mean to tell me that you've only slept with two people in your _whole life_?" The cook continues wide eyed.

"Yes. Not everyone is as obsessed with this stuff as you, you know." He says flatly.

Sanji stares inscrutably at him for a few moments before speaking.

"Wow. Just, wow." The cook says thoughtfully.

He huffs irritatedly at that and says nothing else. Sanji's treating him like he's some kind of precious virginal maiden or something, which is completely not the case.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. So come on, tell me about the other guy. Please?" Sanji asks, apparently sensing that he'd caused offence. Sanji's hand ghosts over his back and settles lightly in the middle of his spine, if Sanji notices the way that he melts a little then he doesn't say anything.

"His name was Ali, he was a trader on a small chain of islands. I was seventeen then, travelling from place to place trying to earn money bounty hunting to get closer to the grand line and closer to Mihawk. I stopped on the island and met him, everyone knew him." He sighed closing his eyes and remembering the sounds of the markets on the small islands and the smell of the sand and sea.

"What was he like?" Sanji's voice prompted.

"Charming, I suppose. He made his living convincing people to give him what he wanted and that what he wanted was what they wanted most. He was a nice guy for the most part, the islands mostly farmed this rare plant and mined precious metals and Ali sold their goods to foreign traders for massive amounts of money. He kept quite a bit for himself but most of it he put back into the islands, he paid people fairly and made sure that everyone had good doctors. And people loved him for it." He continued. He opened his eyes and looked up at Sanji, the cook had a strange expression on his face that Zoro couldn't place.

"Did you love him as well?" the cook asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"I… as I said, Ali was very good at making people want what he wanted them to want. So yeah, I did. It was kind of hard not to, he seemed to genuine and compassionate. But he always got what he wanted, and for a while he wanted me." Zoro answered, resting his chin on his folded arms on the edge of the counter.

"So what happened?" Sanji said raising an eyebrow at him.

"As I said, he always got what he wanted. He wanted me, sure. But he also wanted several women too, and as I said, Ali always got what he wanted. I caught him with two women and he didn't even apologise, he seemed surprised that I was so… well, you know." He said definitively not saying how he had felt. He remembered all too clearly how he had felt, angry, betrayed, hurt, heartbroken and above all else, stupid.

"Bastard." Sanji growled suddenly. Zoro looked up at Sanji whose eyes were dark and fiery.

"I hate people like that. It's one thing to flirt with people when you're unattached but when you're with someone no one else should matter. I'll admit that I've broken off relationships when I've wanted someone else but at least I was honest, and I'm still not even proud of that. But to go behind someone's back like that? Ugh." Sanji says, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

"Well, now you know. You can stop bothering me about it now." He sighed and toyed with the neck of his drink. Sanji doesn't say anything for a while and the two of them sit in a thoughtful silence for a little while, both of their drinks forgotten.

"So I get that you've had quite literally a couple of bad experiences, but that doesn't mean that everything ends that way." Sanji says softly, as if speaking words like that could cause Zoro to shatter, like he's that fragile or something.

"That's got nothing to do with it." He says definitively, he doesn't want Sanji to think that he's some delicate emotional wreck or something because he's worked incredibly hard to not ever be seen as that and he's not going to let Sanji pity him.

"Of course it does! You're convinced that absolutely no relationship can end well and it's all because of those two bastards. I would never betray you like that and whatever it was that the first guy did to you to hurt you so bad that you won't even _tell_ me what he did I swear that I wouldn't do that either! Just give me a chance!" Sanji exclaims and Zoro stands up.

"Believe me, it'd take some very strange circumstances for you to repeat that horrible experience. You and them are nothing to do with one another. We're just… a bad idea is all." He insists, walking backwards away from Sanji.

"Please, just… let me prove it to you. I'll take you out on a date, show you how not like them I am." Sanji insists, catching his wrist. Zoro gawps at that and pulls his wrist back, to his credit Sanji lets him.

"I'm not some girl that you can flirt with and take on dates, so just leave it!" He snaps angrily and stomps off.

He slams the galley door behind him, realising that Sanji must have tricked him into staying there so he'd tell him all about his past. He's angry that Sanji won't take no for an answer and angry that Sanji made him talk about his past when he didn't want to. He's angry at himself and furious that he can feel those old emotional wounds opening up again with all the rage and hurt from them welling up all over again. He storms off to his room, slams the door and locks himself in, resolute in his decision to wallow in anger and pain.


	5. Chapter 5

Zoro's toes are jammed under the edge of the wood panelling of the steps on the Sunny, he's using the leverage from his toes to pull himself up into yet another sit up. He'd spent all morning punishing his body, it hurts even more considering as he'd hardly slept all night. Memories of his past kept floating back up into his mind thanks to talking to Sanji the night before. He wishes fervently that he'd just never said anything at all, he didn't want to feel like this, and he certainly didn't want Sanji's pity which the love cook is almost certainly feeling for him now. And even if he isn't already then he's certain that Sanji would pity him if he knew all of the details of his train wreck of a romantic past. Though perhaps if the cook knew then he'd realise that there's no way that he'll ever let himself get into that position with anyone again. How did it go? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Sanji would make that number up to three which verges into the territory of plain idiocy.

As if summoned just by thinking of him Sanji's black shoes make their way down the stairs in front of him before rounding the corner to stop by his side. Zoro continues his sit ups causing his vision of Sanji to remain unstable. He hopes that Sanji will go away and stop making him think of painful things.

"You're being kind of hard on yourself." Sanji says nonchalantly.

He grunts in response and continues pushing himself. Physical pain of exercise he can deal with, he's been doing it all his life pretty much, but emotional pain is far worse it digs into your mind. If he can lose himself in exercise enough then that pain will block the pain in his head.

Sanji kneels down and presses a hand to Zoro's collar bone, halting his exercise. It's a testament to Zoro's mental strength that he doesn't scream at the cook and carry on.

"I'm sorry if I upset you yesterday." The cook says softly, Zoro spies a frosty green drink in Sanji's other hand. He scowls and hopes that it isn't for him, he doesn't want Sanji fawning over him like he does over Nami and Robin. And he wants the cook pitying him even less.

"I don't get upset, I'm not some girl. I'm _fine._" He growls sitting up, pushing past Sanji's hand. Stupid cook doesn't know a _damn_ thing.

"Ugh, of course." Sanji mutters giving him a flat unimpressed look.

"Look, everyone has things in their past that they don't want to talk about or remember. And I'm sorry if that was one of yours. Just don't beat yourself up over it too much. Here." Sanji insists and presses the green drink against Zoro's bare chest.

He supposes that Sanji didn't mean any harm, it's not his fault that he's had a shitty past. And he is thirsty. Perhaps a peace offering? He pauses for a moment before taking the green drink from Sanji who flashes him a grateful smile.

"That's better. Now, I've got someone else to try and apologise to." Sanji says standing up with a sigh.

"Don't push yourself too hard." Sanji adds suddenly, carding a hand through Zoro's sweaty green hair in a way that sends little shivers and shudders down his spine.

He sits still for a while before pulling his feet out from under the boards of the ship to sit cross legged. The drink in his hand is vibrantly green and full of lots of chipped ice. Suspended in the ice are lots of little torn up green leaves. Feeling puzzled and curious he has a slow sip through the straw. The drink is so wonderfully cold and zesty, he can taste pineapple and lime dancing across his tongue and his whole body sighs in relief as he crunches a small shard of ice between his teeth. It is perfectly cool and refreshing, exactly what he needed to wake him up after barely sleeping last night and after spending the morning punishing his body. Suddenly he realise that his black mood is gone as suddenly as it had been brought about and all he can focus on is the wonderful taste in his mouth.

He hums happily and finds another surprise when he breathes out. The small torn up leaves in the ice are mint leaves, his breath feels cold and minty on his tongue when he breathes, leaving his mouth tingling pleasantly.

Zoro smiles a little despite himself, Sanji really is the best at what he does. He could probably make a drink or a dish to soothe any feeling or mood. Perhaps, he muses as he continues drinking, being the centre of Sanji's attentions for a while wouldn't be bad. The man will doubtlessly get bored sooner or later when it becomes clear that he isn't going to bend to Sanji's will. But for now it might be nice, he wonders if he'll miss it afterwards.

He's roused from his thoughts as Luffy charges past, chasing after Chopper in what is apparently an elaborate game of tag. He finds himself smiling yet again, it seems that Sanji really could work miracles with his craft. He chuckles to himself and stands up ignoring the spasm of pain through his abdomen, he accepts that he might have over done it slightly. He makes his way up towards the galley, if Sanji was nice enough to make him something so good then the least he can do is to return the glass and let it soak in the sink. He might even wash it.

He slips into the peace of the empty galley and wanders over to the sink. He is just about to pour the minty ice down the sink when he pauses. He looks at the little frozen shards of ice with their green leaves in them. They tasted so nice and Sanji had undoubtedly gone through a lot of effort to get the leaves in there. It'd be rude to just wash them away down the sink. He hops himself up on the counter and, after fishing a long dessert spoon out from the drawer that's now under his legs, proceeds to make his way through the remaining ice.

The galley door opens as Sanji enters and shuts again as the man leans on it with a deep sigh.

"At least she didn't pour it over my head this time." He mutters unhappily. The blonde straightens then and spots him sitting on the counter top.

"Well, I must have been a good boy this Christmas to get such a pleasant surprise." Sanji smiles and saunters over to him.

"It's not Christmas, dumbass." Zoro points out. The hot weather outside should make that obvious enough, although the weather on the grand line doesn't have a massive correlation to what time of year it really is. But still, it's May so they could hardly be further away from Christmas.

"Clearly not, if it were you wouldn't have such a foul mouth now would you?" Sanji snorts, resting his hands on either side of Zoro's thighs on the counter top.

Zoro just hums noncommittally at that for he doesn't have a real answer to Sanji statement. He helps himself to another spoonful of fast melting ice and notices that Sanji is watching his mouth rather than looking at his eyes.

"Wha?" He asks around his slightly numb tongue and the spoon still in his mouth.

Sanji snickers and tugs the spoon from Zoro's mouth, he lets it go with a pop and the cook blindly throws it into the sink.

"Did you enjoy the drink I made you then?" He purrs, leaning further forward into Zoro's space.

Zoro can feel himself reddening at this. Half of him wants to tug Sanji forward, wrap himself around him and touch every inch of him that he can find. The other half knows better than that, knows exactly how bad an idea getting involved with Sanji is. But Sanji is still right there leaning between his legs and forward towards him. The two sides of him war and he doesn't move at all. He forces himself to nod in response to Sanji's question, not wanting the cook to see his inner turmoil.

"Good." Sanji says quietly and leans forward and presses his lips to Zoro's own.

Despite himself Zoro's eyes slide shut. Sanji's kiss this time is different, not rough or bone meltingly passionate like before, but gentle and sweet. His lips are soft and smooth and the kiss is almost… loving, as if the cook has loved him for a long time and has managed to put all of that feeling into one innocent press of lips. Zoro leans into it despite his reservations and kisses back because no one has ever kissed him with as much feeling and tenderness as this and it's completely wonderful.

After a few moments Sanji pulls back with a small smile and rests his forehead against Zoro's own.

"Stop being so damn stubborn and let me take you on a date." Sanji mumbles and presses a light kiss to the edge of Zoro's mouth.

Zoro straightens up at that sentence and glowers at Sanji. That remark was just what he needed to get his head out of the fantasy land where he could ignore all of the problems that letting Sanji close would cause. Although to his eternal embarrassment he realises that he'd hooked his calves around the back of Sanji's thighs when they were kissing without even realising it. He hurriedly gets his legs back under control and tries to force up the strength of his glare.

"I'm not a girl." He growls and folds his arms petulantly.

"My god! You're right! You deceived me!" Sanji gasps over dramatically, sarcasm dripping off of his every word.

"Shut up. You take girls on dates, and seeing as I'm both not a girl and not interested in girls, I don't go on dates." Zoro clarifies moodily. He has absolutely no intention of letting Sanji treat him like one of his precious ladies, and if those green minty drinks are part of that then he'll just give them up too. Maybe. They are really good though…

"Don't be so stupid. You take people that you like on dates, gender has nothing to do with it. I promise it'll be something that you like. The next island is supposed to be really beautiful, you'd like it." Sanji insists looking up at him expectantly.

"No." he replies flatly and tries to slide off of the counter top and away from the cook but instead finds himself sandwiched between Sanji and the cabinets with Sanji resolutely not moving. This results in significantly more body contact with Sanji than is conducive to sensible decisions on his part.

"Why not? Scared you'll like it and be unable to keep turning me down?" Sanji grins against Zoro's neck.

He scowls and shoves his way past the cook angrily. Why can't the stupid dart-brow just keep his stupid mouth to himself? Why can't he just accept that anything happening between them is a bad idea, that's it's not going to happen and just back off? Why does he have to always try to goad him into decisions that Sanji wants him to make?

"You think I'm just so easy to manipulate, don't you?" he snaps and heads for the door, having had about enough of Sanji yo-yoing his emotions around for one lifetime.

"In a word, yes." Sanji's smug voice floats over to him.

He stalls, his hand at the door. He's simply floored by Sanji's blatant cock-sure smugness. Although the cook apparently takes this pause to mean 'carrying on saying annoying shit'.

"Although, if you think that you're so impossible to convince I'll make a wager with you. If you win I'll back off and leave you alone for as long as you want me to." Sanji adds.

Zoro really does stop at that and turn to look at Sanji who is smiling at him like a cat that's tricked you into giving it a lifetime's supply of cream. But… the idea of getting Sanji to stop harassing him and actually go along with the clearly sensible notion that they would be a bad idea together is… tempting to say the least.

"I'm listening." He says carefully.

Sanji grins even wider at that and saunters over to Zoro as casually as anything.

"If you're so damn convinced that you can resist me and so damn convinced that dates are just for girls then you should have no problems with this. All you have to do is let me take you on one date, if you honestly don't enjoy it then I'll leave you be. And I know that you wouldn't lie, not on a deal like that. So, are you going to accept my offer or are you going to chicken out?" Sanji proposes.

Zoro mulls that over for a few moments. He's seen dates before and although he'd never been on one they seemed dull and same-y and filled with stupid stuff that only girls went for. Like fancy restaurants and flowers and silly men serenading silly girls with violins and dumb songs. None of that stuff would work on him, and he couldn't even imagine anywhere that Sanji could take him that _would_ work on him. So… did he really have anything to lose by agreeing?

"One evening with you and you'll stop trying to trick me and seduce me and annoy me?" He asks careful to outline the terms of this bet, he doesn't want Sanji to catch him on some kind of technicality.

"I can't promise that I'll never annoy you again, I'm not sure that'll ever happen. But yeah, I'll stop trying to convince you about what an obviously good idea this is and how wonderful I am." Sanji grins cheekily at him.

"Fine, you've got yourself a deal." Zoro says quickly, he wants to seal this deal before Sanji realises just how impossible this bet is for him to win.

"Deal." Sanji nods, catching Zoro's hand to shake it. With a cunning smile Sanji pulls his hand back with Zoro's own still caught with it and turns it quickly and presses a kiss to Zoro's knuckles. He looks up through his lashes at him, blue eyes shining with mischief.

"You're so going to lose." Zoro grins ferally at the cook and pulls his hand back. If Sanji thinks that kind of stupid romantic bull will work on him then this bet will be even easier to win than before. Sanji just flashes him that confident 'we'll see' sort of smile.

On his way out of the galley he quite literally bumps into Nami, causing her to stumble backwards a little. She's carrying a similar glass to the one that Sanji brought him his drink in earlier.

"Oh, sorry." He apologises vaguely and steps aside, holding the door open for her on his way out, his mind still on his and Sanji's bet.

Nami stares at him for a split second as if he's just grown a second head or something, then her face tightens into a small scowl.

"Since when are you polite?" She snorts disbelievingly.

Zoro's eye twitches. He just can't win can he? Sanji always yells at him if he's impolite to the ladies and Nami mocks him when he's accidentally polite. He lets the door go with a shove so it swings shut loudly in front of her.

"I'm sorry, I meant: bite me, sea witch." He grins nastily and strolls off thoroughly enjoying the pissed-off look on the navigator's face. He also sincerely hopes that he didn't imagine the stifled laugh through the wall that could only have been Sanji. If there's one thing that he hopes he can impart on Sanji it's to treat Nami just as poorly as she treats everyone else.

Feeling satisfied that he's solved the Sanji problem and managed to irritate Nami at the same time he decides to spend the rest of the day running through sword stance patterns on deck just like he did when he trained as a kid. The familiar harmony between his body and his swords makes him feel relaxed and peaceful.

The next morning he blearily awakes to find that they've already docked on the next island, apparently they landed in the night and half the crew hadn't been woken up to help judging by Usopp and Luffy's pleasant surprise as they all look over the railings at the new island.

The island is steep and hilly with a large volcano in the centre and, judging from the lush jungle down its side, an inactive volcano at that. There are pretty beaches along the edge of the island with dark sand from the volcanic rock. Off into the distance on the east of the island (left is east isn't it?) lays several towns and a small city close by.

He is quite aware that today is the day of the date, he spent a great portion of last night trying to think about how Sanji could possibly win but he is completely unable to imagine how any of the dates that he's seen could possibly be enjoyable. He's aware that he's likely to enjoy Sanji's company tonight, but he does that whenever the cook isn't actively trying to be abrasive, stupid and irritating, three things which Sanji's been considerably less of since that first kiss on the beach. That fact worryingly suggests that the cook was in fact deliberately being like that before and has just simply stopped now, although he can't think why Sanji would deliberately put effort into aggravating him at every opportunity, even if their fights can be fun.

He sincerely hopes that Sanji hasn't told anyone about their date and he goes looking for the cook just to make sure. The galley isn't empty but instead of Sanji there he finds Robin sitting at the table drinking her coffee serenely.

"Oh." He says upon seeing her instead of the cook and stands awkwardly there for a second, not knowing what to say. 'I was hoping you were someone else' seems a little rude, even for him.

"Sanji left early to go shopping, said he'd rather have his evening free. Although he didn't say why or offer to take Nami and I out like he always seems to. A fact which I found curious." She smiles at him slowly.

Zoro very deliberately forces his face into neutral, the memory of Robin tricking him into admitting things he shouldn't still very fresh in his mind. He shoves away the sensation of the hairs on the back of his neck standing up and stands his ground.

"I see. I have to go now." He says stiffly and takes a step backwards towards the open door behind him.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to join me for some coffee or perhaps the bread that cook-san freshly baked this morning?" The dark haired archaeologist asks sweetly.

"Actually, I'm not hungry." He answers quickly and takes another backwards step towards the door, not trusting to take his eyes off of her. Behind him he feels the rush of displaced air and the bang of the door shutting suddenly, in his peripheral vision a few rose petals fall down, dissolving before they hit the floor.

"That… wasn't actually a question was it?" he mutters defeated. He knows that Robin doesn't lightly take no as an answer, he still remembers poor Franky and how Robin's wicked hands very nearly ripped the poor man's balls off.

"No, but it would be polite of you to pretend it was and sit down." Robin smiles innocently as two disembodied hands pull the chair opposite her out from under the table.

He grumbles and sits down. Robin watches him with eyes like a hawk and a smile like a viper. He picks at the bread so that he'll have something to do with his hands.

"You and cook-san seem to be getting on rather better lately. I'm glad." She eventually says, leaning back in her chair and watching him carefully.

Her hair is sleek and dark around her face but her eyes are sharp and penetrating, no eyes intimidate him quite so much aside from Mihawk's. Sanji treats Robin like a delicate flower and claims that Zoro doesn't treat her with the respect and adoration she deserves. Zoro firmly believes that no one really deserves adoration and he suspects that he actually respects Robin more than Sanji.

He thinks of her like a snake, sleek and efficient, pretty perhaps in her own way. The kind of creature that might laze around a man's neck and shoulders like a decoration like a tame pet might, yet still perfectly able to tighten her grip and squeeze the living breath from your lungs if she so chose. He respects Robin's strength and never forgets it. The woman could snap his neck at any moment that she wanted to, and for all his skills with swords there's almost no defence to that. He's well aware that she's very unlikely to do so, and he in fact trusts her not to, but he still respects the fact that she _can_ and treats her as such.

"I explained, like you said. I suppose you were right." He answers carefully. He wonders if she came to talk to him because he hadn't thanked her, but he suspects not, she's not one for praise.

"That's not important." Robin says waving a hand dismissively at the idea.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at her, he has no idea what Robin wants to talk about if not that.

"He seems to be paying a little more attention to you lately. You wouldn't notice it if you weren't looking, but he is. Am I correct in assuming that he doesn't agree with your evaluation that any relationship between the two of you would be inadvisable?" Robin asks with a curious tilt of her head.

Zoro clenches and unclenches his fists under the table, he doesn't want to talk to Robin about this but he's not sure that he has a choice. Robin probably isn't above getting other people involved if she thinks it'd make him crack and tell her. But there's also Sanji to consider, he's not said anything about keeping what's been going on between them a secret, but then he clearly wasn't keen on telling anyone so perhaps the cook felt like he didn't have to ban him from talking. Also the cook probably wouldn't be too excited at the prospect of his precious ladies knowing that he was trying to stick his tongue down Zoro's throat frequently. A little wave of spite comes over him suddenly.

"Yeah, he thinks that it's a great idea for some reason." he says before he can help himself.

"But you still think it's a bad idea?" Robin asks in a voice that suggests that she already knows the answer. He nods in agreement, it didn't matter if the idea of having Sanji all to himself is more than tempting, it would end badly.

Robin gives him a careful considering look over the rim of her coffee cup. She taps her finger on the edge of the cup for a moment as if in thought, but keeps her eyes on him at all times.

"I think Sanji is a little bit in love with you, you know." Robin says lightly whilst watching him like a hawk.

"Sanji is a little bit in love with everyone." he says with a laugh that comes out with more of a bitter tint to it than he'd intended or expected.

"You're a fascinating man Zoro." Robin smiles at him and drinks the last of her coffee in one slow sip.

"Tell me," she continues putting her cup back down on its saucer, "are you in love with him?"

"What?" he splutters feeling shocked, "No!"

Robin's smile curls dangerously and the hairs on the back of Zoro's neck stand up of their own accord.

"Fascinating." she repeats and stands up.

"Enjoy your evening, Mr. Swordsman." she adds, exiting the galley.

Zoro snaps his mouth shut before he can say anything to that, wary of accidentally giving Robin information again like before. She gives him a sly look as if impressed that he's learning her devious ways as she slips out of the door and shuts it behind her.

"Oh Robin-chan! Were you looking for me? I could whip you up something to eat if you like!" Sanji's voice coos from outside the door.

"Ah no thank you, Cook-San. I was just enjoying the lovely coffee that you brewed earlier." Robin's voice answers him.

The cook and the archeologist exchange a few more pleasantries while he sits staring dumbly at the wall. He couldn't help but have Robin's words rolling around his head, what did that even mean 'a little bit in love with him'? He always felt that Sanji was the kind of man that loved everyone a little, he showed love to every pretty woman he met, he loved his nakama but then they all did.

But... Well, what if Sanji _did_ love him? And was he really sure about his answer to Robin? He'd fallen in love when he shouldn't have before, was that what was happening now? Why did Robin always have to mess with his mind like this? He just wanted to get away from her and from Nami who was driving him nuts and really it- he leaps about a foot in the air when a hand suddenly touches his shoulder. His eyes snap up to see Sanji looking down at him with a concerned look on his face.

"You okay? You looked really out of it there. You were completely ignoring me." Sanji asks quietly. Zoro groans and puts his head in his hands and mentally curses Robin for perpetually messing with his head.

"Zoro? Are you ok?" Sanji asks, holding his hand against Zoro's jaw with his long fingers curling around to the back of his neck.

"I feel like I'm going crazy here, I just wanna get out." he mutters, leaning into Sanji's touch.

"I never thought I'd see you so eager to go on a date with me." Sanji chuckles and scratches his fingertips through the short hair at the nape of Zoro's neck.

"That's not-" he starts to say but pauses. He's leaning into Sanji's touch, he can feel himself tilting his head to press further into Sanji's palm and angling his head slightly so that the cook can tangle his fingers in his green hair more easily. He closes his eyes for a second, he's spent so long just dreaming about Sanji treating him like this that he can't blame himself for enjoying it. And actually an evening with just Sanji, the new Sanji, the one who doesn't deliberately aggravate him sounds pretty good.

"Actually, yeah." he sighs wearily.

"Hmm, you're awfully agreeable today." Sanji smiles tangling his fingers in Zoro's hair.

He leans forward and rests his forehead on the table and lets Sanji toy with his hair for a while. He's vaguely aware that this falls under the category of 'bad idea' but he can't manage to stop himself, much less tell Sanji otherwise.

He's not in love, he thinks, he can enjoy this without having fallen in love. So, really, it's okay. Isn't it?

Sanji lets him go with a thoughtful noise and wanders over to the cupboards, picking up bags that he'd not even noticed the man bring in.

Sanji starts pulling supplies out of the bags and putting things away in cupboards and drawers. Zoro rests his head on his arms and watches Sanji move confidently around the kitchen with utter certainty and precision. He thinks not for the first time that Sanji's movements through the kitchen were similar to the familiar sword stances that he runs through regularly himself. Sanji absently runs a hand over his knife rack as he passes it almost out of reflex and Zoro wonders yet again just what the cook would be like fighting with a bladed weapon, not that Sanji would ever risk his hands like that.

Sanji begins to hum some quiet little tune under his breath and Zoro can feel his muscles relaxing just from watching Sanji so at ease in his own domain. Slowly his eyes start to drift shut.

"-wondered where he'd got to." Franky's voice filters groggily into his mind. He frowns and keeps his eyes shut, when did Franky come in?

"Shh! You'll wake him up! And if he gets pissed at you and starts a fight in my kitchen I'll kick both of you overboard!" Sanji's voice hisses.

Wake him up? Had he been asleep? Actually sleep sounded like a really good idea, he felt so comfortable where he was right now.

"Good point, is that why you've not kicked him out?" Franky asks curiously.

"Something like that. I'm having the night off, so the last thing I want to do is to spend my day fighting with the marimo over there." Sanji answers, his voice accompanied by the repetitive sound of chopping.

"A night off eh? Don't tell me you've already got a date with a pretty girl? We only just landed here!" Franky exclaims surprised. Zoro's eyes snap open at that, what's Sanji going to say? He forces himself to stay still and shut his eyes again, he wants to know what the cook says without the two of them realizing that he's woken up.

"Something like that." Sanji says vaguely and Zoro can just hear the sneaky smile in his voice.

"Aw come on, what's she like? More importantly what does she look like?" Franky chuckles dirtily. Zoro tenses and finds himself wishing that he had the ability to set people on fire with his mind.

"A gentleman never tells." The cook replies haughtily and there's a splash as something enters boiling water.

"Exactly, so spill." Franky retorts cheekily.

"Get out of here, rust-bucket. Be glad I'm leaving you any dinner at all." Sanji snips and Zoro can hear the whoosh of a kick that doesn't connect, though that's more likely to be deliberate on Sanji's part than a dodge from Franky. Sanji can be nice like that sometimes, kick to miss the first time, just as a warning shot.

"Okay, okay!" Franky laughs and Zoro hears the door shut behind him.

Zoro stays still, feeling a little disappointed. Their conversation wasn't especially enlightening, the two of them didn't talk about him, but in a way he wished that they had, it'd be useful to know what the cook really thinks. He can't hear any more cooking sounds but after a second he hears the familiar little _shink-click_ sound of Sanji's lighter working.

"Just a tip marimo, if the whole swordsman gig doesn't work out and you're looking for a new day job, don't pick actor." Sanji says casually.

Zoro straightens up and looks at Sanji who has a smug little self-satisfied smirk on his face with his cigarette hanging between his teeth.

"You slept for two hours you know. That was of course until Speedo-man came stomping in here like an ungraceful oaf." Sanji adds, taking a deep breath of smoke.

"I don't even remember falling asleep." Zoro admits as he stretches out his muscles slowly.

"Apparently my hands are so skilled that I can scratch your head and make you fall asleep instantly. Is that a point in my favor or against it?" the blonde asks, wiggling his fingers to illustrate his point.

"I'll let you know. What's that?" He asks as he catches sight of two big backpacks on the kitchen counter, those weren't there before.

"You'll have to wait and see. We're leaving in a bit, just as soon as I'm happy with this sauce for the others." The cook says motioning with his head to the stove to his left.

Zoro takes this as his cue to leave and shambles out of the galley in silence. The deck is mostly empty, he can see Franky and Chopper talking to each other up in the crow's nest room but aside from that there's not a soul about. He shrugs and heads below to his room. He likes having his own space when he wants it, not that he spends much time in his room aside from when he sleeps, but he appreciates being able to go to sleep in a room that doesn't smell like Usopp's feet all of the time.

He knows that he can't be bothered to shower but he supposes that he really should at least change for this silly date with Sanji. He's never been on a date before, so he's not exactly sure what you're supposed to wear, but he knows that he should make an effort lest Sanji claim that he's not really trying and call off the bet. He flips the lid on the chest that contains his clothes open. After digging through several more copies of what he's wearing he finds a white shirt at the very bottom that he thinks he wore briefly to a party after they had defeated someone or saved some island or something. He picks it up and checks it once over for massive holes, rips and bloodstains and surprisingly the shirt comes up free of all of those.

He tugs his shirt and green waistband off and puts the new shirt on, fumbling with the unfamiliar buttons. He smoothes the shirt down on his chest, it's not crisply ironed and freshly washed like the cook's clothes but it'll do. He pulls clothes off of the wall where he's hung them to uncover the mid-sized mirror that Franky installed there when the ship was built and looks at himself.

The effect isn't bad, he looks smart-ish he supposes. His swords sort of mess with the clean line of his body that his shirt has created but he's certainly not leaving them behind, he's learnt better than that in the past. He doesn't look bad in this and he doesn't look like someone else either, he has worn this before after all, but he can't be bothered wearing such things most of the time. The shirt doesn't have as much give in it as his usual white cotton t-shirt does and would get in his way in a fight. He has no idea how Sanji deals with wearing these every day, but then again the cook hardly uses his upper body in a fight at all, he's all legs and Zoro has seen Sanji's trousers which are rather cunningly tailored to allow him to do those incredible splits and kicks without risk of ripping any seams.

He stares at himself for a moment more before remembering something and reaching back down into the chest and, with a little rummaging, pulling out a tie. He stares at it for a few moments before realizing that, fuck, he can't actually remember how to do these things up.

He recalls that last time he was made to wear this stupid thing, Sanji had eventually come over and tried to teach him. He'd been adamant in refusing to follow the cook's instructions until Sanji had grumbled and tugged him over by the collar, slipped the tie around his neck and deftly and elegantly tied it for him. Zoro closes his eyes and remembers that, Sanji had been so close, his mouth so temptingly near that he could just lean over and press their lips if he'd wanted. That and Sanji's sure and elegant fingers pulling at his neck and accidentally brushing his chest had kept him in fantasy material for weeks.

But now… now… it wasn't just a fantasy. Sanji was real and really offering a chance and something tangible between them. He stared at the tie in his hand and wondered if he was making the right choice. He'd wanted this so bad when it wasn't a possibility, when it was just a harmless fantasy. Be careful what you wish for indeed.

He couldn't let their nakamaship be destroyed, he cared too much about both of their dreams to let that happen, not to mention for the harmony of their little Straw-hat family. In addition to this he didn't exactly have a stellar track record romantically and he was loathe to allow anyone to betray and hurt him like that again. But on the other hand there was… well, there was Sanji. Whilst that counter-argument was highly irrational it seemed to be what his body was listening to right now. His body craved Sanji as badly as Sanji's probably craved those stupid cigarettes. Every touch, every moment with the cook being pleasant to him, every kiss was just another hit to his growing addiction. His body felt _wrong_ when he had to push him away. His mind and his body were completely opposed in this case.

His hand closed around the tie and he slung the back around his neck. He'd made the deal with Sanji now, one evening with him and then it was all over. Half of him wished that he would lose the bet and Sanji would keep paying attention to him, keep touching him. But there was no way that Sanji could take him on a silly date and have him enjoy it. And pretending to enjoy it when he didn't would be just as obvious a lie as pretending he hadn't when he had and he'd promised Sanji that he wouldn't lie. Well, that was that then. This would be the last night like this, Sanji would hold to his word and that'd be the end of it. Still… no reason for him not to put any effort into was there? And maybe… maybe Sanji would like it if he wore the stupid tie.

He looked at himself in the mirror and tried to recall Sanji's instructions the last time. Over then under? Around and over? Left then…? Goddamnit! He tried tying the thing like a shoelace but that didn't work, then something else that he did nearly strangled him. It then occurred to him after he'd wrenched the awful thing off that perhaps that last one might have been close but now he couldn't remember how he did it and was all fingers and thumbs when he tried.

"What _are_ you doing?" Sanji's voice asks suddenly from behind him. Zoro jolts and he spins around to see Sanji standing at the doorway looking quizzically at him. He realizes that he has the middle of the tie held between his teeth with his other two hands entangled in the tie. He stares wide eyed at Sanji for a second who is staring back equally wide eyed at him. Feeling foolish he lets the tie fall from his mouth and the cook's face splits into a broad, beaming smile.

"You dressed all smart for me." Sanji states in a voice that sounds actually quite touched. The cook steps forward and inspects the mess that he's managed to make of the demonic tie.

Zoro's still staring at Sanji. He's not in his suit, he's wearing a shirt but just barely. It's a pale linen thing that's hanging open with a tight black t-shirt underneath it. He's wearing pale trousers that look like they might perhaps be from a suit but he's not sure that he's seen Sanji wear them before. He looks nice, as always, but… casual perhaps. Like he's not trying to impress anyone for once.

"You dressed down." He says feeling stunned. Sanji's eyes flick up to him and he smiles again, warmly this time, perhaps affectionately even.

"I guess we met somewhere in the middle. Let me release you from that tie, you don't need it. We're not going anywhere fancy." Sanji says and starts pulling on bits of the evil tie in an attempt to release him.

"We're not?" Zoro asks surprised, he thought all dates were fancy. He thought that the harder someone tried the fancier it was, and he knows that Sanji's going to be trying pretty hard tonight what with how high the stakes are.

"Of course not, you wouldn't like it would you? How did you manage to trap your own finger in this?" Sanji says perplexed and tugging at the tie further. He manages to release Zoro's trapped finger and with a little more work the rest of the tie comes free.

"So what _are_ we doing then?" Zoro asks, feeling somewhat lost and confused. This date hasn't even started yet and he's already out of his depth, what with Sanji's confusing comments and unusual state of dress, he has no idea what's going on.

"Well, why don't you follow me and find out?" Sanji smirks throwing a surprisingly light backpack at him and sauntering out with one of his own.


	6. Chapter 6

Zoro follows Sanji off of the Sunny and along the beach for a while. Sanji is adamantly refusing to tell him anything and looking completely smug about it too. Even Zoro can work out that they're heading away from the town, he can see it in the distance behind them.

He hefts the backpack on his shoulder experimentally, it's not very heavy and the bag itself feels soft except for something in the bottom of it. He had thought when he first saw the backpacks that Sanji had packed something big and heavy, but if he has then it's not in his backpack. Sanji's one looks as if it might be a little heavier but he can't tell.

To their left the jungle starts to thins out a little and there's a small path that looks like it's been made by lots of fairly small animals using it regularly. If he was going hunting he'd follow this path to find something to catch for Sanji to cook. Sanji turns and heads along the path and Zoro's rampant curiosity gets the better of him and he keeps following.

"Where the hell are we going cook?" he eventually demands, stopping on the narrow path in the middle of some dense jungle and refusing to move until the curly-brow gives him some answers.

"It's a surprise moss-brain. You understand the concept of a surprise, yes?" Sanji asks, rolling his eyes.

"Will you at least tell me what's in these bags?" Zoro asks following Sanji through the thick jungle as the cook starts walking again.

"It's a surprise marimo, you'll have to wait and see." Sanji laughs, letting go of a branch as he passes it just in time for it to flick back and hit Zoro in the chest.

The two of them continue stomping their way through the thick jungle in almost complete silence except for the occasional warning about low hanging branches or really uneven ground. Zoro feels himself getting more and more perplexed, surely this itself isn't a date is it?

"Look," he eventually says, "I enjoy a pointless trek through the jungle as much as the next man, but what exactly are we doing?" Zoro asks frustratedly.

"I'm trying to find... Ah, here we go!" Sanji exclaims and disappears through several dense bushes. Zoro sighs and follows the cook.

He emerges a few moments later to a clearing in the forest, Sanji is already looking at him and grinning in a pleased sort of way. Zoro looks around and to his surprise sees several large rock-lined pools of water with steam rising gently off of them. In the centre of the clearing is a little shrine with a small statue in it and several unlit candles scattered around it. He can smell the slightly metallic tang in the air as the warm steam hits his face.

"Hot springs." he murmurs in surprise, more to himself than to Sanji.

"I heard about this place from some people in the market on the last island, it's supposed to be really good and for some reason the locals never come here after midday. So we've got the place to ourselves, pretty cool huh?" Sanji explains as he shrugs his backpack off and rests it carefully against the base of the tree.

"Too bad it doesn't have some kind of giant waterfall for you to try and inflict yourself with in the name of training, but I thought you'd enjoy this place anyway. You like it?" Sanji asks, gesturing to the springs with his arm. Zoro stares for a second at Sanji's expectant smile and realises that this feels like Sanji is trying to gift-wrap this entire place just for him and suddenly the idea clicks into place.

"This is our date?" he says surprised. Sanji's face falls suddenly and he looks instantly crestfallen, it'd be comical if it didn't tug at Zoro's heart so much.

"You don't like it. I was so sure that you would..." Sanji trails off sadly.

"No, no! I like it, it's just… I thought dates were all fancy restaurants and flowers and music and shit." He corrects the cook hastily. He's happy to see that terrible distraught expression melt from the cook's face at his words.

"Only if you're got all the imagination of a rock. I mean sure, one or two of those might be fine if your date is into that sort of stuff. But you're supposed to take a date somewhere that they'll enjoy. And since you won't like any of that typical boring date stuff I thought I'd avoid that and try to take you somewhere that you would enjoy. So here." Sanji grins and sits down to take off his shoes.

Zoro grins and sits down to do the same. The springs actually look really warm and inviting and it's been a while since they found an island with hot springs but they always seem to do wonders for the condition of his muscles. And as if things weren't already great the place is completely devoid of other people, no strangers and no Luffy running around accidentally drowning himself. The place is completely peaceful.

"Hey, open your bag would ya?" Sanji asks him as he stands up and pulls off his shirt, leaving him in just his black t-shirt. Zoro stares for a second at Sanji's skinny and alluring frame and thinks that actually tight clothes suit the cook, much _much _better than his fussy suits.

He shakes himself out of staring at Sanji and reaches over to his own backpack and pulls it open, excited to find out what's actually inside. There are towels and both of their swimming shorts packed up in there, he's about to investigate the rest of the now mostly empty bag when Sanji snatches it off of him.

"Ah-ah marimo, no spoiling your surprises!" The cook teases him and puts his backpack next to Sanji's own.

"You packed for me? Just how much planning went into this?" Zoro asks curiously as he unrolls his towel and picks up his shorts. He's somewhat impressed that Sanji snuck into his room at some point and found his shorts, more impressive is that he is fairly sure that they weren't clean before and he wonders when Sanji snuck into his room and got them washed before this. How long had the cook been plotting this day?

"Ah, a good date always plans, and a magician never reveals his secrets. I'll be right back. Whilst I've been known to take my clothes off after a first date it's usually poor form to do so during." Sanji smirks and saunters off in the other direction with his stuff.

Zoro muses about whether this means that Sanji is expecting there to be more dates as he quickly strips off and changes. He wouldn't be surprised, especially since the cook seems so far quite reasonably confident about today.

Once changed he wanders over to the closest pool and experimentally dips his toe in. It's pleasantly warm but not too hot, just right in fact. He swirls his toe in the water, it's cloudy like most hot springs are but it means that he has no idea how deep the water is. He leans over a little further in the hope of seeing how deep the rocky walls of the hot spring go down.

"You should really appreciate how much self-control that took to not kick you in just then." Sanji's voice says suddenly from behind him. Zoro nearly loses his balance in shock anyway and turns to glare at the cook. He walks almost silently at the best of times, but barefoot he's just damn impossible to hear.

"You treat all your dates this nice cook?" He snorts and climbs down into the spring. His muscles practically melt on contact with the water and he has to hand it to Sanji for finding such a good place.

"I don't usually kick my dates into things, so yeah, you're getting treated just as good so far." Sanji says and follows Zoro in and amusingly discovers that he can't touch the floor by nearly drowning himself. The cook surfaces spluttering with his hair plastered to his face and his cheeks pink from the water. The look that Sanji's giving him suggests that he doesn't find this anywhere near as amusing as Zoro does, which regrettably only makes the situation funnier and Zoro laugh harder.

"So." Sanji begins after finally finding somewhere where he can comfortably lean against in the edge of the pool without risking accidentally submerging himself again.

"You've really never been on a date before? Even with the two exes that you've had?" Sanji asks curiously.

"No." He shrugs half-heartedly. He didn't really think he was missing out on anything, after all dates were just for girls. Although he wasn't sure this qualified as a date by his previous standards as this was actually… nice.

"Ungrateful bastards, they had the chance and wasted it and now I have to bribe you to get you to even consider it." Sanji tuts disapprovingly.

Zoro rolls his shoulders and feels a little bad about that. After all it's just because they're nakama that he won't let anything happen, it's not as if he's scared of the idea or anything. But Sanji seems to be under some impression that his previous… whatever you wanted to call them have scarred him irreparably or something.

"I wouldn't waste any chances like that." Sanji says gently and Zoro sinks low down in the water until his nose is only just above the water line and tries not to feel uncomfortable because this _can't happen._ No matter how earnest and appealing Sanji is being he really can't risk them becoming anything more than nakama. He shouldn't have agreed to this stupid date in the first place.

"Ah, sorry. Talking about exes during a date, not a good idea." Sanji mutters shaking his head and running a hand through his wet hair.

"I'll make it up to you, I keep asking you awkward questions. So you can ask me a few. Sound fair?" The cook offers, tilting his head in Zoro's direction.

Zoro thinks about this for a moment and is thankful for the clouded water obscuring the lower part of his face because that way Sanji can't see the evil grin that just stole across his face as his brilliant idea hits him. He sets his face into a casual neutral and hauls himself back up so his mouth is out of the water.

"I can ask you anything I want? And you'll be completely honest?" He asks innocently.

"I would never lie to a date in a situation like this." Sanji professes, his hand actually honest-to-god held over his heart dramatically.

Zoro can't stop the dark grin this time. This might just pay Sanji back for forcing him to talk about his past the other night, goodness knows thinking about it kept him up all night. Payback sounds good right about now.

"Well, if you're inviting me to ask you questions that you have to answer honestly… there must be something that you're really hoping I don't ask about. Tell me about that." He grins ferally.

Sanji's face is a picture right now. It's frozen somewhere between utter shock and horror and the cook's entire body is rigid. Zoro's grin widens, oh yeah, that was a good one.

"You… you sneaky little bastard." Sanji chokes out, blue eyes wide open.

"Go on." Zoro prompts smugly.

"There were two things that I was hoping you wouldn't ask about, so there." The blonde retorts and childishly sticks his tongue out at him.

"Hm, I guess that's just dishonest then. I might as well leave now." He sighs dramatically and starts to leaver himself out of the hot spring.

"No! Don't go!" Sanji yelps, catching his hand on the back of Zoro's shorts. He looks down at the cook challengingly and the blonde sighs and slumps his head in defeat.

"Fine, I'll tell you both." The cook concedes and slumps back against the wall. Obligingly Zoro sinks back into the water, not that he really had any intention of leaving, and gives Sanji an expectant look.

"I suppose I didn't want you to ask about my family." Sanji sighs, closing his eyes.

"Zeff?" Zoro guesses, he knows that the cook and his mentor aren't related but anyone can see that they're family. Sanji shakes his head no however.

"No, my parents. I had a lot of brothers and sisters as a kid, I don't know why. It seemed every time my mother would have another kid she'd be pregnant again almost right away, it was ridiculous. When I was seven one of my little brothers got really sick, it looked like he was going to die. My parents couldn't afford a doctor, not with all the mouths they had to feed, and even though my older brothers and sisters did all the work they could we still didn't have enough." Sanji explains slowly.

Zoro listens carefully, Sanji's eyes are shut, his mind clearly back in that time.

"At that age I was the oldest of the younger siblings, the oldest one not able to really work yet. But they needed money, so my parents came up with a plan. They asked me if I wanted to help my little brother, of course I said I did, and they asked me if I wanted to have an adventure, I was a kid so obviously I said yes. They found a ship captain at the docks near our house who needed a pair of hands on board, a kid small enough to run about and not get in the way, someone to get in the small spaces of the ship. So they sold me to him, I guess they used the money to pay for a doctor, I never found out. I don't even know if my brother survived." Sanji continued in a carefully neutral voice, as if he were describing someone else's life instead of his own.

"You were a slave?" Zoro asks surprised.

"Mn, no. The captain by chance was a decent man, paid me a small wage and treated me okay. When they found out that I had a knack for helping in the kitchen that's where I stayed, I started learning to cook and eventually ended up on the ship that Zeff raided and the rest is history." Sanji shrugs nonchalantly.

Zoro thought about that. He could imagine a small scared blonde kid just trying to help out when he shouldn't even have had to. Then that poor kid finding out that he was never going home again and was stuck on a ship with lots of strangers, gun fights and violence.

"That's pretty bad. I'm sorry. But… I suppose if you hadn't you might never have been a cook." Zoro offers, hoping that his words will be of some consolation to the cook.

"That's what I tell myself. But still, it's a shitty thing to do to a kid. The dumb thing is that now I can't even remember my brother's name most of the time, sometimes I remember but most times it just slips away. It was another life I guess." Sanji laughs hollowly and stares unseeingly at the water in the spring.

A guilty flush rises up the back of Zoro's neck. Payback isn't feeling so sweet anymore, Sanji looks like he feels as unhappy about having to talk as he did before.

"Hey, I didn't mean… you don't have to tell me anything else. I'm sorry." He says worriedly.

"It's fine. I suppose you need to talk about this stuff sometimes, I'm bad at that. I'll tell you the other thing." Sanji says shaking his head.

"You know about how I met Zeff right? He attacked the ship I was on." He continues, looking at Zoro for confirmation.

"I know how a scrawny little blonde kid was dumb enough to challenge a grown pirate to a knife fight." Zoro shoots back, hoping to goad a smile out of Sanji and drag this conversation somewhere back in the same continent as a normal conversation between the two of them and true enough Sanji does grin.

"That's right. Anyway, right after that he saved my life just as the ships were destroyed. We ended up marooned on a godforsaken rock in the middle of the ocean with only a few days worth of food." Sanji explains.

Zoro nods. He's never been told about that rock, but he's heard. Bits and pieces from his nakama who have heard fragments, he's sure that the cook has picked up snippets of his past the same way, everyone on the ship has something that they don't want to talk about but people find bits out. As for that rock, he knows a little. When he and Sanji used to sleep in the men's bunkroom together before Zoro got his own room he would hear Sanji talk in his sleep sometimes. Not often, but when the cook was stressed he'd hear the cook whining pitifully in his sleep about 'that goddamn rock' and about how starving he was. If the cook woke up he'd not sleep for the rest of the night and head straight for the kitchen, the cook would never eat much at breakfast the next day and Zoro suspected that he'd eat in the night after waking up with memories from that time.

They all talk in their sleep when they get stressed though, old memories and scars rising to the surface. Franky would mumble about Tom and stopping that train, Usopp would cry out for his long dead mother and he'd awoken before with the sound of Kuina's name echoing through the room. They never said anything to each other but they knew, there were some things that you didn't talk about. He never thought he'd actually hear Sanji tell him about this.

"When I woke up I saw that the old man had two bags, one for me and one for him." Sanji continues.

"His was about five times the size of mine. He told me that those were our rations and that I was to get lost and only call him if I saw a ship. I spread out my food knowing that it'd be a while before I got rescued. I didn't know it'd be eighty days. By the end I was starving to death, there was enough rainwater about that I didn't die from dehydration, which sucked because that would have been quicker. I can't imagine a worse way to die. I started going mad with hunger and resolved to kill Zeff for his food, I'd have been prepared to even eat him if I could. I hated him for getting me in that situation, hated him for saving me." Sanji says, his voice raw from the memory. Despite the warm water they were both immersed in Zoro saw the cook shudder at the thought.

"When I got to Zeff, fully prepared to kill him I found out that the old man hadn't had any food after all. His whole bag was treasure, he'd given me all the food he had just to save my life. Then I noticed that he had one less leg than the last time I saw him. He'd… he'd…" Sanji chokes out, his voice shaking. Zoro reaches out to touch Sanji, he isn't sure he wants the cook to continue, it's clearly immensely painful to remember.

"He'd found a rock and smashed his own leg off, his own _leg_. He cooked and ate it, just to stay alive. He could have had my food, he could have killed me and eaten _me_ if he wanted. But he destroyed his own leg, his greatest weapon. Pirates all across the grand line feared Zeff and his red leg but he destroyed it just to survive and all because he saved me and gave me his food." Sanji gasps, clearly choking back tears. His fist is curled up so tightly that the cook's knuckles are stark white.

"How… how do you repay someone for that? You couldn't even ask someone to do that for you, so what do you do when they do it anyway? I need to find All-Blue, I promised him I would. If I don't then there was no point in Zeff saving me, in Zeff destroying himself for me. I can't bear to have him regret that any more than he already must." Sanji says desperately, he was sobbing openly now.

Zoro couldn't restrain himself any longer, he swims forward and grabs the back of Sanji's head and pulls him close.

"That old man loves you, any idiot can see that. I'm sure he doesn't regret what he did for even a second. Sure he lost a leg but he got you instead, that's a pretty good trade. And if All-Blue is out there to find then you're going to find it, even if I have to drag your dumb ass there myself." He vehemently insists, his breath hissing past Sanji's ear.

He feels a few sobs judder through the cook's neck before Sanji manages to straighten up and look Zoro in the eye.

"You think so?" Sanji asks, looking fragile.

"I know so dart-brow." He replies with certainty.

And he is certain, anyone could see that Zeff thought of Sanji like a son. Anyone could see that he felt that Sanji's need to stay close to Zeff to repay him for what he did was unnecessary, the old man would rather see Sanji out chasing his dream, _their_ dream. The old cook clearly had no regrets about saving Sanji's life, and how could anyone possibly have when faced with who Sanji had become? He certainly was glad that Zeff had saved the cook, the idea of Sanji not existing was… wrong.

For the first time when he looked at Sanji he saw someone small and insecure, still haunted by that time on that rock where he nearly starved to death. That kind of thing didn't go away, it was clearly lurking under the surface all the time. And suddenly a lot of things made sense, the way Sanji got so furious when Zoro was reckless with his own life or when Zoro tries to give his life for his nakama, the way Sanji is always so keen to please everyone. Sanji was trying constantly to earn what Zeff had already given him for free, and deep down he apparently thought that Zeff had made a mistake. He couldn't let Sanji think for a minute that everyone wasn't glad that he was still here, and since he was the only one here to correct the stupid cook it had to be him.

He pulls himself closer with the rock behind Sanji's head and presses himself to the cook and locks his mouth with Sanji's. He could hear the little gasp of surprise through Sanji's nose but as Zoro moves his lips against the blonde's he slowly starts to reciprocate. He wasn't any good with words, there was no way that he could manage to tell the cook everything without messing something up. But this… this he could do. He tried to put all his gladness that the cook was alive and that he was more than worth saving into his kiss.

Eventually they break apart panting, their foreheads resting against each other.

"Beats talking about the weather I guess." Sanji laughs weakly and runs a wet hand over his eyes.

Zoro hums in agreement and realises that his hand has found its way to Sanji's narrow hip, he runs his thumb along the plane of Sanji's hipbone and wrestles with the temptation to follow the sharp line of bone and muscle down into where they dive below the waistband of Sanji's shorts. Apparently though what he's already doing is good as he hears Sanji's breath hitch and feels the cook's back arch him closer. Experimentally he lets his fingers explore the nerves of Sanji's hip.

A moan slides from Sanji's lips that quickly redirect all the blood in Zoro's body southwards. And from what he can feel of Sanji pressing against him the cook is having the same problem. Sanji's long fingers curl against Zoro's ribs, making him shudder.

"Okay, if you keep doing that I'm going to break my 'no taking my clothes of during a date' rule. Propriety be damned." Sanji says, his breath coming quickly across Zoro's damp cheek.

Zoro nods his agreement and pushes away from Sanji, his toes just manage to skirt the bottom of the hot spring before his back makes contact with the rocky wall at the other side of the hot spring. He and the cook stay there for a while staring at each other and trying to calm down. It becomes apparent that after a little while that looking at each other isn't exactly helping with the _excited_ situation. Zoro knows that he at least is thinking that it would be great to press Sanji back against the wall of the hot spring and kiss him and touch him again.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think of something else, anything else. First he tries to think of the very physically unexciting prospect of laundry, but that thought just leads to Sanji's clothes and the fact that if Sanji's clothes are not on him then he might not be wearing anything at _all. _This understandably makes his problem worse. He tries to think of the least erotic thing that he can, after a while of searching his mind he eventually settles on the mental image of Usopp and Nami going at it. And oh yeah, that's done the trick. Zoro shudders and is a little worried that after that mental image he may never be able to get hard again.

He opens his eyes to see Sanji hauling himself out of the water and strolling off to investigate the other hot springs with his own problem apparently solved. Zoro smiles, as long as Sanji's walking around looking like that he's pretty sure that his last mental image won't ruin his prospects permanently.

He pulls himself out of the warm water and experimentally rolls his shoulders. His muscles already feel wonderful from his soak in the water and he finds himself thinking that he's glad that Sanji brought him here. The thought occurs that this might mean that Sanji will win their bet. He glances at the cook out of the corner of his eye, he's inspecting the small shrine a little way away.

He wonders what else the cook might have planned but he supposes that he'll find out soon enough anyway. Losing the bet would take away his chance at getting Sanji to back off, which would undoubtedly make his life more difficult, but he can't remember the cook attaching any penalty for Zoro losing the bet. He frowns, surely Sanji would have thought to make Zoro having to concede to Sanji's wishes as his prize if he won.

"Hey cook," Zoro calls and jogs to catch up to him.

Sanji stands up fully, pulling his head out of the shrine's sheltered canopy to avoid hitting his head on the way up.

"Yeah?" Sanji asks and turns to face Zoro properly.

"You never said what you get if you win this bet." Zoro says, dearly hoping that Sanji hasn't tricked him somehow.

"Why? Are you starting to think that you might lose?" The blonde smirks and folds his arms self-confidently.

"No." he retorts, more out of habit of contradicting the cook just because he can than as an actual answer.

"Hah, sure. If I win all that happens is I get to keep on as I am, I don't have to back off like you made me promise to. And I'll have shown you what you're missing." Sanji laughs cheerfully.

"That's it? I'd have thought that you'd want to make me go back on my decision that anything happening between us is a bad idea." Zoro muses thoughtfully.

"Tch. I told you idiot-swordsman, I don't make other people's choices for them. Besides, I don't want you if you don't want me back." Sanji says dismissively and wanders off in the other direction. Zoro's a little worried that's he's insulted the cook until the man speaks again, his tone light and casual.

"Lets check out some of these other springs. I can't believe that we've got this place all to ourselves." The cook suggests, clearly feeling pleased with his good fortune.

"Why is that anyway?" he questions curiously and follows Sanji over to another hot spring that looks like it might be warmer than the last if the greater amount of steam coming off of it is any indication.

"No idea. The people in town said that no one goes out on this part of the island past midday. But no one would tell me why. I can't see why though, I know it's easy to get lost in that jungle but you could leave here now and still be back in town long before it got dark." Sanji shrugs and carefully dips his toe in the water.

"Oh wow, that's actually really hot." He remarks and steps back a little. Zoro can see that the cook's big toe is actually bright pink just from that short exposure to the water.

He looks at the spring warily, he's fully aware that these things are powered by the volcano so they can be dangerous when they want. He's lucky that they didn't just leap straight into that one, that would have been painful. His eyes spy something amiss in the middle of the pool.

"That… shouldn't be bubbling." He says quickly and pulls Sanji back by his arm.

The cook gets as far through his sentence as 'What are you-' before the hot spring suddenly becomes a geyser, shooting boiling water high up in the air along with several of the rocks that were lining the pool. He and Sanji quickly get under the covered shrine before the still very hot water can fall back down on them.

"Maybe the volcano is more active at this time of day?" Sanji says in a hushed voice, as if he's afraid that speaking too loudly will set off another explosion.

"I guess that explains the locals reaction then." He replies.

As if on cue the geyser erupts again, hissing out more steam and boiling water in its wake.

He and Sanji look wide eyed at each other and then break out into the slightly manic laughter of two men who are well aware that it was only luck and quick reflexes that saved them from being boiled alive and blown up just seconds ago. The two of them laugh until tears are streaming down their faces and they're both slumped on the floor of the shrine. Eventually their laughter fades to slightly contagious fits of giggles and Zoro thinks that he can manage to sit up properly and investigate the world around them without falling back into uncontrollable laughter again.

"Looks mostly safe, we should probably go though." Sanji suggests, his hand resting on the small of Zoro's back. He represses a pleasurable shudder at the cook's touch and instead stands up with him and carefully but quickly makes his way back to the tree line where their stuff still sits.

Sanji bends over and retrieves his towel from the top of Zoro's bag where it was sat and rubs his hair until it's mostly dry. He glances down and Zoro and flashes a smile at him before dropping his towel on Zoro's head and rubbing hard.

"Come on marimo, you can't just sit there staring at me all day. We've gotta get going, stuff to do." Sanji says teasingly before stealing Zoro's own towel and disappearing off.

"Hey! I don't want your wet towel!" Zoro yells after him. Grudgingly he dries himself off with the now pretty damp towel, feeling bitter at how dry Sanji must be by now since he stole his perfectly nice dry towel. He's just tightening the belt that his swords hang from when Sanji returns fully dressed and looking smug.

"Come on, let's leave this stuff here. We'll get it on the way back." Sanji suggests, throwing the towels and shorts over a tree branch to dry out a little. Zoro shrugs and follows Sanji carefully along the edge of the clearing until they're at the other side of the hot springs and back into the now slightly thinner jungle.

The trees are far enough apart now for he and Sanji to walk side by side. The silence between them is comfortable but Zoro can't help but feel awkward about Sanji's story earlier, the cook had good reason for not telling him before and it seems unfair that he's divulged his past without Zoro really reciprocating. Sure Sanji knows a little about Ali and he knows _of_ Judas even if he's told him nothing but his name, but other than that he's not told the cook anything. It seems a little unfair.

"My parents were gypsies." He blurts out suddenly.

"…okay?" Sanji replies and looks puzzled by Zoro's non-sequitur.

"Or travellers, whatever word you want to use. We went all over the place, I've no idea even where, everywhere looks the same after a while." He continues. Sanji says nothing but tilts his head curiously at Zoro's story.

"There were lots of us together, about twenty or thirty adults going about the place and a couple of kids. My uncle was a swordsman, not that he fought much, he mostly just did tricks to earn money when we were a little short. But I was always fascinated by it. When I was about six I started exploring the towns that we stopped at, a few of them had dojo's and I got my own practice sword. We never stayed in one place long enough for me to really train though. One day…" He trails off and looks warily at Sanji for a moment.

"If you laugh…" He says threateningly.

"I wouldn't. What would I laugh at?" the cook promises, looking surprised. Zoro winces and continues his story.

"One day I snuck off to go to the dojo in the new town that we'd stopped at, I spent longer there than I thought there because the sensei was just so skilled and interesting. I panicked when I got outside because it was night time when I got out, which was typically when the caravans and horses moved off. It was dark and I couldn't remember which way I'd come and when I tried to retrace my steps and get back to my family I got lost. I got lost in the woods around there for two days, when I finally found people again I was in the town before last that we'd visited. I managed to follow the road back to the town with the dojo but when I eventually found my way back to the camp everyone was gone. There weren't even any tracks for me to follow. So yeah, I lost my family because I can't walk in a straight line without getting lost." He admits bitterly, fully expecting Sanji to laugh at him. After all, the cook always picked on his poor sense of direction, but it was hard to navigate when you had no fixed point on a map that was home.

"That's not funny!" Sanji exclaims wide eyed, perhaps a little hurt that Zoro expected him to laugh.

"You were just a kid and they left you. Didn't they even leave a note to say where they were going? What did you do?" Sanji asks worriedly, as if Zoro was still small and lost rather than a perfectly capable adult, well, mostly capable anyway.

"I went back to the dojo and they let me stay there. Never saw my family again." Zoro answers, deliberately not mentioning that it was Kuina's father's dojo.

He felt bad holding out details like that from the cook, but even now years later he still can't recount the tale of her death without feeling sick. He'd see the place where she died, the blood from her head stained on the wooden steps in the dojo where she'd fallen, the stain stuck there no matter how hard anyone tried to scrub it away. He'd thought before that it was so unfair that she was the one who died so pointlessly, she'd always been so much stronger than him, perhaps if he had died instead of her then she would be the one walking here with Sanji and not telling him about the death of a childhood friend.

He smiles sadly. Sanji probably would have really liked her, he doubts that she would have taken any of Sanji's romantic crap either. She was so strong and determined, he had no doubt that if their places had been switched that she too would have followed their dream. He wonders if she would have lost that first fight to Mihawk too, if the Schibukai would have seen in her what he saw in him.

"Hm, you should tell me the rest of that story sometime." Sanji says quietly, bumping their shoulders together deliberately. Zoro looks up surprised at Sanji but the cook is already looking ahead of them again. Sanji knows that he's not telling him everything and… doesn't care. He smiles and thinks that yeah, he just might tell the cook about her someday.

As they progress up the side of the volcano their conversation turns to their nakama and the ship. They both agree with a shudder that Franky _really_ needs to put some more clothes on, they speculate about what Chopper's going to be like when he grows up more. They both wonder what on earth Luffy is going to even _do_ when he finds One Piece, they both suspect that even he doesn't know.

By now the trees are much thinner, only appearing occasionally and Zoro only realises when his stomach growls loudly that they've been walking for hours in comfortable conversation. The sun is starting to set which is probably the only reason that Zoro spots that the walls of what look to be a crater to their left is lighter than it should be. He tugs on Sanji's elbow and they jog over to the crater to investigate.

Looking in they can see that it's not a crater at all but rather the mouth of one of the volcanic vents, in the bottom glowing yellow lava illuminates the walls of the crater with a dull glow. They both stand there and stare at it for a moment before Sanji speaks in a quietly excited voice.

"Want to throw a big rock in and see what happens?" He suggests with wide excited eyes.

"Yes, yes I do." Zoro agrees seriously and starts looking around for a rock around the right size. Eventually he manages to find a black boulder that comes up to about his knee and rolls it over to the edge of the crater, Sanji looks at it approvingly, apparently he couldn't find anything suitable himself.

With an excited look between them they give the boulder a shove and watch it rumble down the side of the crater until it lands in the lava with a hiss. For a few disappointing moments the rock just seems to sit there until it suddenly looks like it's sinking. Zoro realises delightedly that the rock is actually melting before their eyes; he can see fresh bright yellow lava being created as the rock disappears.

"I was kind of hoping that it would explode." He shrugs even though he knows that would really have been bad.

"Yeah, because nothing adds to a date like exploding boiling rock." Sanji says rolling his eyes.

"Come on, let's go eat. I'm hungry." Sanji insists, pulling Zoro further up the volcano until they arrive at a flat rocky outcrop near the top of the volcano's side.

The cook takes his own backpack off and pulls out a blanket which he spreads on the dusty volcanic rock, he takes out several small lacquered boxes and places them carefully on the blanket. And with a mischievous smile he pulls out several bottles of alcohol, wine for Sanji and sake for Zoro. Sanji gestures for Zoro's backpack and he hands it over to him curiously. Sanji pulls out a large rectangular black lacquer box that was apparently laying flat at the bottom of his bag.

Sanji pops the lid off of the box and Zoro can already tell that the food is wonderful, he can smell it from where he's sitting. He can already spot some of his favourite dishes that Sanji cooks nestled in their little compartments in the box. He knows he's never told the cook what he likes, everything Sanji cooks gets the standard answer of 'hm, it's okay I guess' from him. But apparently Sanji hasn't been fooled by that because right here is all the food that Zoro hopes for when Sanji cooks them dinner.

The food smells delicious but the sun is almost set and he's sure that this light isn't doing justice to how brilliantly presented Sanji's food always is. He feels like that's a little unfair to the cook.

"We should have got here earlier, it's going to be dark soon. I almost can't see what I'm eating." Zoro says snagging a piece of sushi with his fingertips and popping it in his mouth. Sanji raps him on the knuckles with a set of chopsticks and forces them into his hand.

"Doesn't matter. You know, I've heard of these restaurants that are completely dark, pitch black. All the waiters are blind and you eat in absolute darkness. People eat with their eyes too much, they don't listen to their mouths enough. It can be good to do that sometimes." Sanji explains airily.

"What you mean is it took longer to get up this volcano than you thought." Zoro smirks around some grilled chicken.

"That too." Sanji admits with a laugh and starts eating as well.

Zoro is really impressed with Sanji's food, that isn't to say that he isn't always, but it's different being the one person that Sanji is cooking for. Everything seems tailored around what he likes and to create a relaxed feeling in him, what Sanji does really is magical. He remembers the drink that the cook made for him, it was just for him. The memory makes him remember Nami's empty glass and he finds himself curious as to what Sanji made her and what feeling he had put into it.

"Why is Nami so pissed at you anyway? And at me? I know you called her a harpy, which by the way is brilliant, but I thought I saw you apologise so I don't know why she's still so angry." Zoro says suddenly.

"She's angry because I haven't taken back everything that I said. I apologised for calling her such terrible names but… I'm not apologising for the rest of it. She was wrong to say what she did." Sanji answers and Zoro can see a ripple of tension run through the man's body and the cook glowers at the blanket for a few moments.

"I've no idea what you're talking about. I don't even know what you fought about." Zoro frowns.

"Ah. You haven't heard then." Sanji says with a sigh and slowly pours himself a large glass of wine.

"I was… pretty angry at you then, as I'm sure you know. And Nami came to talk to me. She said… well, she said that you weren't worth getting so angry over, that someone who could get me that upset wasn't worth that kind of emotion. And that made me really angry, I mean, I was angry with you but you're still nakama and no one says things like that about my nakama even if… well, even if they're nakama themselves. I apologised for what I called her but I won't apologise for being angry at her words. I don't think she understands." Sanji explains and drinks deeply from his glass.

"But you said-" Zoro starts with a frown. He remembers that Sanji had been explicitly clear about them not being nakama, Sanji had been clear that he hated him.

"I _know_ what I said. But I lied, being nakama isn't something you can just switch off like that you know." Sanji answers, clicking his fingers in demonstration.

Zoro nods at that, he _does_ know what that is like, it can be hard to just change the way you feel about someone, no matter how much you should do so. Still, he was lucky that Robin had stepped in and made him talk to the cook when she did, even if Sanji couldn't just cut their bonds right away it didn't mean that he couldn't have done it eventually.

Their box of food was mostly empty by now and Zoro was full at any rate so with a stretch and a sigh he laid back on the blanket with his bottle of sake at his side. Sanji apparently felt obligated to eat the last of anything the two of them had left. The cook was never one to waste food which was something which Zoro could understand a little better now. After that Sanji settles in on the blanket near Zoro and stares up at the sky.

"The stars are starting to come out." Sanji says softly and there's a quiet slosh as he takes a swig of wine right from the bottle, Zoro wonders if his manners have rubbed off on the cook.

"How the hell do people even navigate by the stars anyway?" Zoro wonders aloud as he stares up at the bright pinpricks in the sky.

"Seriously?" Sanji snorts and props himself up on his elbow to look down at him.

"You've gotten to be a world famous pirate-hunter and a pirate travelling on the grand line and you still don't know this stuff? You use the North Star, moron." The cook says disbelievingly.

"I knew that." Zoro huffs because, even he knew that fact. He just can't _identify_ the North Star, making that nugget of knowledge a little useless.

"Oh yeah? Prove it then, show me which one's the North Star. Hint: it's the brightest one in the sky." Sanji goads him and flops down next to him on the blanket.

Zoro feels a little wave of panic there because he seriously doesn't know what the North Star is. But Sanji is looking at him expectantly so he has to do something. He winces, it's supposed to be obvious right? Something you can't get to his age without knowing or seeing right? And Sanji _did_ say that it's the brightest thing in the sky. So…

He sets his jaw confidently and points up into the sky. Sanji's eyes follow his finger and for a moment the cook is still and Zoro thinks for one smug moment that he's right. That is until Sanji bursts into uncontrollable laughter. Massive, wild, side-shaking howls of mirth.

"AAAHAHAH! Zoro! God- gahahaha! That's- that's bahahaha, that's the MOON!" Sanji shrieks with glee.

"You tricked me! You said it was the brightest thing in the sky!" Zoro says indignantly.

"The brightest _star_! That's the goddamn _moon!_" He laughs madly.

The cook rolls over, his sides still shaking with laughter and buries his head in Zoro's shoulder smothering his laughter in Zoro's nice white shirt.

"It's- it's a reasonable mistake to make." Zoro huffs feeling a little hurt but not so much that he'll push Sanji away.

"Oh god, don't say that. If I keep laughing like this you'll make me throw up or something." Sanji cackles.

"Shut your stupid face dart-brow." Zoro snaps and raps Sanji on the top of the head with his knuckles and then wraps his arm around the cook anyway.

After quite a while Sanji's laughter dies down into just the occasional giggle and Zoro finds that his hand has started stroking small circles into Sanji's lower back almost by itself.

"Mmm. This is nice." Sanji says after a while, his hand on Zoro's stomach.

Zoro considers this, he supposes that the evening has been pretty good, even if it wasn't the sort of thing that he would have thought qualified as a date.

"Don't you think?" Sanji prompts, leaning up on his elbow to look down at Zoro.

"You're just trying to get me to say that you won the bet aren't you?" he replies, well aware of Sanji's not so subtle motives.

"That's beside the point. Didn't you enjoy tonight?" Sanji insists with a small frown on his curly brow.

"I-did you hear that?" Zoro says sitting up suddenly. He can swear that he just heard a sound that registered in his brain as suspicious but with Sanji talking over the top of it he can't tell.

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Sanji snaps and sits up as well.

"I'm not!" Zoro hisses back and listens carefully.

"You can't just-" The cook starts again and-there. He swears that he heard a footstep there. He claps his hand over the stubborn cook's big mouth and listens intently. The cook, to give credit to him, tilts his head and listens as well.

The world is completely silent around them, Zoro can only just hear their own breathing. There aren't even any bugs making insect noises this far up the volcano. But he was so sure…

"Oh for goodness sake." Sanji grumbles and pulls Zoro's hand away from his face.

"There is absolutely no one up here but us. No one in the town comes up here past midday, you know that. We're all alone on the top of a goddamn cliff!" Sanji says irritatedly gesturing to the vast empty but beautiful landscape around them.

"Sorry, I could have sworn…" Zoro says with his ears still pricked up for any other sound. But perhaps there was no sound, perhaps he was just imagining it to escape having to answer Sanji's question. It wouldn't be so uncomfortable thing to admit if it didn't mean so much, Sanji had surprised him and he'd liked it, he really had.

"Well?" Sanji says with an expectant look. Zoro winces, he can't lie. Even if he hadn't promised Sanji that he'd be truthful the cook is pretty good at spotting when he's not being honest. And really telling the cook that he hadn't enjoyed tonight when he had very much enjoyed himself would be insulting to all the effort Sanji had put into the night.

"Look, I did enjoy myself. You won… but that doesn't change anything. We still can't do this." He says hastily.

The cook's face cracks into a brilliant smile, so bright that he's swear the sun had just come out. He's just beginning to worry over what's going to happen now when a blindingly sharp pain erupts in the back of his head. As the world suddenly pitches forward and sideways he sees Sanji's expression change to livid and he watches the cook start to leap up before the floor greets his face and the world fades almost instantly into black.


	7. Chapter 7

Zoro is not an unobservant man, especially when it comes to important things he can be quite astute. This was why when he wakes up he notices several very important things. First of all he notices that he's tied up, his hands painfully twisted and tied behind his back and his ankles bound tightly too. Secondly he realises that either it is pitch black where he is or he has gone blind, and feeling the sharp stinging pain in the back of his head that last one is certainly a possibility. And lastly, as it isn't quite as important, he realises that he is naked. The horror of his last point was mostly due to having his swords taken away than being indecently exposed, though that is still a concern.

He's not stupid, he keeps quiet and experimentally twists his hands to test the ropes binding him, they don't budge, even when he pulls harder. The ropes creak and he hears a shuffle opposite him. He freezes and prepares to lash out as much as he can restrained like this.

"Zoro? Are you awake?" Sanji's voice calls out with a nervous shake to it.

"Sanji? What's going on here?" Zoro replies feeling himself relax a little now that he knows Sanji is with him.

"Well, rather embarrassingly we've been captured. By a tribe of incredibly angry and enthusiastic midgets." Sanji grumbles unhappily.

"Well, at least it can't get much worse." Zoro sighs wondering if he and Sanji can manage to escape here in such a way that their nakama won't realise what's happened to them. He knows that if the others hear this story then they'll never hear the end of it, especially from Usopp who will doubtlessly retail the tale of how his stupid nakama got captured and probably work in a daring imaginary rescue from 'Captain Usopp' in the process too.

"It kind of does actually. Haven't you realised where we are?" Sanji's voice says gently. Zoro raises an eyebrow in the dark and runs a hand against the wall that he's leant up against. It's slightly curved out away from the floor and it's a smooth cold metal surface. He has no idea how wide the room is and experimentally stretches his leg out, his toes meet Sanji's toes at a stretch which makes the room fairly small.

"You know how if we were, say, held hostage in some sort of sword making building I would trust your expertise? Well, in this situation we're trusting mine and it doesn't say good things about this situation." Sanji's voice says darkly.

"So what is this place then? A big fridge? It doesn't feel cold." Zoro blinks into the darkness, feeling confused.

"It's a cooking pot." The cook answers flatly.

Zoro's eyes widen, surely that can't be so? That would make this one absolutely massive cooking pot. Even the shape of it doesn't feel like a cooking pot, but perhaps it does feel like some kind of cauldron, which really is a pot of sorts he supposes.

"But surely it's too big? Why would anyone even-" he starts, feeling shocked.

"You could make a pot this big, if you intended to cook something big. Or rather, two big somethings. Trust me on this, I'd know a cooking pot with my eyes shut. We're going to be someone's dinner if we don't act soon." Sanji says darkly.

"Well, shit." He sighs and tugs harder at his wrists but the rope doesn't budge.

"Can you kick your way out of here?" Zoro asks as the idea occurs, he wonders how thick the metal of this pot is, it must be quite thick but he's seen the cook do incredible things with his kicks so it isn't impossible.

"With a little time I could, I think. But I'd rather not be tied up when we get out, and I'm sure you feel the same. It's not like we're being cooked right now. And speaking of could you help me with this knot now that you're awake?" Sanji says and Zoro hears him shuffling closer.

When Sanji's hands both press against Zoro's bare thigh he realises that Sanji's hands are tied in front of him. He's about to ask how come Sanji's aren't tied behind his back when Zoro realises that they probably were but the cook and his damn flexibility got him out of it whilst he on the other hand had been unconscious.

Sanji's head bumps his collar bone and with one last shuffle Sanji's legs are against his, the cook hauls himself fully upright so he's sitting on folded legs and clumsy hands in the dark find his face.

"There you are." Sanji breathes, his hand tracing down the line of Zoro's jaw.

"Here I am." He replies numbly because now really isn't the time for his brain to be helpfully reminding him every half a second that Sanji is _there_ and _naked_.

"I need you to bite this rope. You're always chewing on that damn sword so the least you can do is hold this between your teeth." Sanji orders in the darkness.

"I can't see a damn thing, you're going to have to be a little more specific." He points out snarkily. He really hopes that Sanji can't see anything either, up until now he'd assumed that they were in the dark and Sanji hadn't said anything to the contrary, but he really hoped he hadn't gone blind. That would really suck and make his dream even harder to achieve.

"Well, I can't exactly give you directions in this darkness can I?" Sanji grumbles as well and Zoro relaxes a little, not blind then.

Sanji's lips brush his so suddenly that he jerks back in shock and his head clangs against the wall of the pot so hard that he can hear the metal ring. Sanji's lips chase after his lightly and stay there for a split second just pressed to his.

"Follow me." He whispers against Zoro's lips. The cook pulls back and Zoro gets the idea and follows him so that his lips stay against Sanji's. The cook leads him down to the rough rope on his wrists and when Sanji pulls away Zoro feels a knot of rope brush his bottom lip, he bites onto it hard.

"Got it." He says clearly around the rope.

He feels Sanji nod and the cook leans down to the rope on his wrists again. His nose brushes Zoro's cheek and he can feel the cook's head move as he worries at the other half of the knot with his teeth. Some slack appears in his part of the rope and he pulls his head back and feels the rope come free of the knot with it. He hears the sound of rope moving and then the sound of it hitting the floor.

"Oh man, that feels much better. Now for the feet!" The cook says happily and with some more shuffling he feels the cook's legs move.

Suddenly the pot lurches to the side, sending himself and Sanji sliding across the floor and crashing into the opposite wall of the pot in a tangle of limbs. The pot lifts up and jerkily continues swaying from side to side before eventually coming to a halt with a clang.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Sanji curses quickly and disentangles himself from Zoro and feels his way to Zoro's feet.

"We need to get you untied now!" He cook says hurriedly and starts working quickly on the knots at Zoro's feet, which would be challenging enough in the light but is near impossible in the dark. Miraculously Sanji gets his feet free just in time.

The lid of the cauldron clangs open and the sudden light after the pitch black darkness is painful but Sanji is quick off the mark and drags Zoro up and onto his feet quickly just as liquid starts to pour into the pot with them. Sanji is swearing next to him in a nervous and distracted sort of way and Zoro's not sure if it's the warm liquid being poured in with them but he's fairly sure that the bottom of the pot that they're standing on is a little warmer than it was a moment ago.

Sanji hooks his arm through Zoro's bound one and leaps just as the liquid stops pouring into the pot with them. Apparently though their tiny captors are wise to this trick and slam the lid on the pot fast just as Sanji reaches it which leads to he and the cook bouncing off and splashing back down into the chest-deep liquid.

Sanji comes up spluttering, apparently he got more submerged than Zoro did.

"_Chicken_ stock? You're cooking me with _chicken stock_ you bastards? Now not only am I going to die in here but I'm going to taste terrible too!" Sanji screams furiously.

Zoro decides that it's better to stay quiet than have the cook's rage directed onto him.

"Fuck, my arm." Sanji hisses in the darkness.

"It's not broken is it?" Zoro asks as concern wells up in his chest. Sanji goes to such extreme lengths to protect his hands it'd be terrible for his arm to get broken and put him out of action for months.

"No. Hurts like hell though." He says with a wince in his voice and Zoro hears the water slosh as the cook rubs his arm.

"Honestly though, chicken stock with human meat. Ridiculous." Sanji grumbles and moves to undo Zoro's wrists.

Zoro considers it wise not to ask what exactly is the appropriate flavour to serve humans with and decides that he doesn't want to know why Sanji knows that. He hopes the cook's experience with that is theoretical only, perhaps Zeff told him what people-meat tastes like.

"Uh, thanks." He murmurs as his wrists come free.

"I don't suppose… that your no-sword cutting technique would work in here would it?" Sanji asks, his hand still lingering on Zoro's arm.

"Sure it would. I can cut through that, but I'm guessing being in a hundred tiny pieces when we came out is a bit of a deal breaker huh?" He answers and wades towards the wall of the pot and feels the metal.

"It'd ricochet in here huh? I thought as much." The cook sighs.

"How about you?" he asks turning to face the cook and reaching out a hand to his arm just to check that he's still there.

"About the same, kicking under water is a hell of a lot harder, especially barefoot. I'd be more likely to throw myself about and drown than break through this." Sanji answers unhappily.

"What if I held you out of the water, it's not that high up." Zoro muses, if the stock that they're standing in is the problem for Sanji then maybe being out of it is the answer.

"All due respect to you, but which do you think is stronger, this iron pot or your grip on the slippery wet bottom of this pot?" Sanji points out.

"Well, what if I braced myself against that wall?" Zoro suggests instead.

"Even if it wasn't too far away to be possible, which is stronger? That iron wall or your spine? I've no desire to kill you." The cook snorts.

"Well what do you suggest then?" Zoro snaps frustratedly at the cook's lack of helpful answers.

"The only way out that I can think of is the way we came in, through the lid. I just hope that we can get it open or they open it before we die." Sanji says distantly.

Zoro tries to retraces his steps to the centre of the pot and then leaps to try and reach the pot but his fingers only rake through thin air.

"I can't reach it." Zoro states unhappily, he didn't think that the lid was that high up.

"I can if I jump." Sanji remarks casually.

"Well you're the one with the fantastic legs, so what're you going to do about it?" Zoro retorts. He can feel the smug grin hanging in the air rather than see it on the cook's face and as he mentally replays that last sentence he considers that, yes, that really could have been phrased better.

"Fantastic legs, eh?" The cook asks teasingly.

Zoro decides not to reply and instead splashes a wave of the stupid chicken stock at the cook who simply laughs.

Zoro shifts his feet on the floor, it's definitely getting warmer down there now. The moving of the pot earlier must have been the cannibals moving the pot on top of a fire.

"I'd say that we've got about ten maybe fifteen minutes until the water in here starts to boil. But we'll be long dead before it ever does. So we've probably got about seven maybe eight minutes?" The cook muses calmly, as if he's not talking about something that'll kill them.

"So do we just wait for them to open it? That doesn't seem like a great plan." Zoro points out and leans back to float in the water, the floor is getting hotter than is really comfortable for him to stand on now. From the disturbance in the water he's guessing Sanji is doing the same.

"Well, if I was going to cook people alive I wouldn't risk the chance of opening the pot again until I knew that they were dead. Unless I thought that they were going to ruin my meal or my equipment in the process. Then I might open it to kill them, that'd be our best chance. It's all speculation of course but it's better than boiling alive." Sanji suggests and floats over to Zoro.

"What would you suggest?" Zoro asks curiously since cutting the pot and kicking it apart are no longer options.

Sanji grabs Zoro's wrist in place of an answer and kicks off of the nearest wall, sending them sloshing over to the other side of the pot. He's puzzled until Sanji twists and pushes off of the other wall of the pot and sends them back the way they came. He realises in a flash of inspiration that Sanji's trying to create a wave in the confines of the large pot and unbalance it. He grins at the cook's creativity and follows suit.

Before long they're moving a lot of water around with them and the pot is starting to rock slightly from its base when the wave changes direction. Suddenly Sanji yelps in pain as the water in the pot crashes into the wall along with himself. Zoro flails and reaches out in the dark for the cook, he catches onto his arm and smashes his own back into the pot as well. The skin on his shoulder blades singes painfully as he makes contact with the scorching hot metal. He can guess now what made the cook cry out.

A sense of panic starts to fill him, the floor of the pot is already painful to stand on and the water around them is too hot for comfort and the walls of the pot around them are too hot to risk continuing throwing the water back and forth the way they have been. He doesn't know how long they have left before they pass out from the heat and are boiled alive.

"This isn't going to work. If I hold you up do you think that you might be able to get that lid off?" Zoro suggests as he wipes away the sweat beading on his brow.

"It's worth a try but it's too hot to stand on the floor already-" the cook starts.

"My feet aren't my weapon like yours are. Don't argue with me cook." he orders and plunges down into the too hot water and grabs the cook around the thighs and hauls him out of the water. The added weight pressing his feet down onto the bottom of the pot hurts, but he shrugs it off.

"H-hey! You need feet to be a swordsman, idiot! Put me down!" Sanji yelps and grabs onto Zoro's hair in the dark.

"I said don't argue cook! Now get that lid open, or can't you even do that right?" Zoro snarls. He's made his decision and he's not going to let the cook stop him. They need to get out of here, and if that means he burns his feet off to do it, then so be it. And if they don't get out of here then his pain doesn't matter because he'll be dead before too long.

The cook clearly realises that Zoro isn't going to be swayed on this matter and reaches up above them to the lid of the pot. His bare hip is pressed against the side of Zoro's face and at any other time that would put Zoro's mind right in the gutter, but to his credit his libido takes a back seat to mortal peril in this situation.

"Fuck, the lid's clamped shut." Sanji curses and there's a clang that Zoro assumes to be Sanji thumping his fists against the lid.

"Maybe I can..." Sanji trails off, followed by more banging.

Zoro's not really paying attention right now because the pain in his feet is becoming intense despite his shifting from one foot to the other. To make matters worse the hotness of the water is starting to make him light headed.

"Just hold on, the lid's starting to come loose. We're getting out of here, I promise." Sanji says softly and combs a hand through Zoro's wet hair. It's only then that Zoro realises that he's biting into Sanji's hip in pain.

More clanging follows and Zoro can hear the lid rattling as Sanji thumps at it. He sways slightly and he's sure that if he could see in this darkness that his vision would be blurring.

"Hey, stay still marimo!" Sanji cries as Zoro sways again suddenly.

He shakes his head and focuses on breathing, the air is thick with steam now and it's getting hard to breathe and the dizziness is getting worse. He supposes that this is what Sanji meant when he said about passing out before the water even boils.

He vaguely registers that light has returned to the world and Sanji's weight in his arms lightens. The cook's knee brushes his jaw on the way up.

_'Oh good,'_ he finds himself thinking, _'Sanji's free.'_

With the cook's grounding weight gone from his arms he falls forward into the scalding water and the world darkens again. He thinks that he vaguely hears the cook curse. 

Wooden boards swim distantly into focus above him and he feels tired and dry like a wrung out washcloth.

"Chopper! He's awake!" Sanji's voice yells from nearby.

Sanji's face and shimmering blonde hair appear above him in his field of vision. The cook's face is creased with some emotion that Zoro can't place.

"Zoro! Zoro talk to me! Don't be dead, please!" Sanji pleads.

Ah, that would be concern on his face then. He finally registers the weight on his legs and his brain slowly comes to the conclusion that Sanji is sitting on him.

And dead? What does the cook mean by dead? Surely he knows that he's alive?

He frowns and manages to grunt in response. This doesn't erase the worried look on the cook's face but then suddenly Chopper's furry face appears above him as well.

"Zoro, can you hear me? Do you know where you are? Do you know how old you are or where you are?" The little doctor asks seriously.

Zoro squeezes his eyes shut and works his jaw a little to get some saliva back in his terribly dry mouth.

"Get your bony ass off of my leg cook, you're cutting off my circulation." He grumbles and even to his own ears his voice is rough.

Sanji's laugh is full of obvious joy and relief and he flings himself forward and wraps his arms around Zoro's neck.

"You're okay! You don't have brains like boiled cabbage!" he laughs.

"What?" Zoro blinks perplexed.

"Being at temperatures that high can cause strokes and seizures and destroy your brain Zoro, especially since you passed out we weren't sure that you were going to wake up, or still be you when you did." Chopper answers seriously.

Sanji rolls off of Zoro and sits between him and the wall with a happy smile on his face.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to replay his memories. Yes… they had been on that date of Sanji's and then he'd been knocked out by a blow to the back of the head. He'd held Sanji up to the lid and they'd escaped… somehow. He didn't have any memory of how that last bit happened.

"Where are my swords?" He gasps as the horror of that thought creeps over him.

He can't bear the idea that those little bastards have his weapons. The other two he could possibly stand to lose, though it would hurt, but not Kuina's sword. He'll go back if he has to, right now even.

"They're fine, I snagged them on my way out while carrying your unconscious ass." Sanji answers quickly, clearly aware of Zoro's distress.

Zoro relaxes in a rush at that, they're okay, he's okay, everything is okay. He's actually surprised at how not-awful he feels. He'd been in immense pain in that pot but now he feels fine.

"I don't… hurt." He says aloud, he feels kind of spacey and slow and somewhat numb all over but there's not even a hint of pain. He wonders what drugs Chopper has given him and how bad the damage to his body really is.

"That's good, the painkillers should be working well. Get back to bed Sanji, you both need your rest. Ring the bell if you need anything when you wake up." Chopper says as he leaves the room and switches the main light off as he goes.

Zoro looks over at Sanji, the man's only wearing loose shorts and he's covered in lots of square taped on bandages. Zoro can already see some smaller burns on his body that have some kind of shiny gel over them. He gets worried though when he notices how thoroughly bandaged the cook's hands are.

"Your hands!" He exclaims staring at them.

"Oh, I burnt the side of my fists on that lid when we escaped, your feet are worse though. I'll be cooking again in no time." Sanji shrugs surprisingly nonchalantly.

Zoro realises that he's not even thought of his feet until now because he can't even feel them. He sits up displacing Sanji slightly who lies down on the bed next to the empty space that Zoro just vacated. He pulls the blankets back and sees his feet bundled up in bandages.

"Don't take those off. Chopper _will_ kill you." Sanji warns from behind him.

Zoro hesitates because the stupid love-cook is probably right. Sweet tempered little Chopper can be a force to be reckoned with if he thinks that his patients are hurting their health whilst under his care.

He flops back on the bed, careful to avoid the space that Sanji seems to have invaded and claimed for himself. The cook wastes no time in slinging his arm over Zoro's stomach. Zoro doesn't bother to move or displace the cook.

"Thanks by the way. I passed out back there and you brought me back." Zoro says looking up at the ceiling as the thought occurs to him. He must have been a real dead weight to the cook, having to pull him out of that pot and presumably run all the way back to safety with him and his swords.

"You think I'd leave you behind?" Sanji frowns, his voice containing a dangerous edge to it. The kind of edge that suggests that an affirmative answer would be a _bad_ idea.

"No… but thanks anyway." He answers as the idea occurs that he didn't think even for a second that Sanji would leave him. He when he passed out he knew that Sanji could take it, and apparently him too, from there. Sure it would have been safer for Sanji to leave him there, especially since he might have been dead by then, but he didn't.

"Well, you're welcome. And you scared the shit out of me when you passed out in there, I think you got the worst of that by staying in the water instead of me. So thanks for that." Sanji says echoing Zoro's sentiment of gratitude.

"You're welcome I guess." He replies knowing full well that he won't feel so magnanimous when he can actually feel his feet again.

"I'm glad you don't have brains like boiled cabbage, even if they would have matched your hair." Sanji smiles sadly after a while, his face almost completely hidden by his hair.

"My hair does not look like-" he starts to argue, but Sanji just smirks and punches him in the ribs. Zoro doesn't retaliate because he spots the tell-tale wince that suggests that Sanji hitting him hurt his burnt hand just as much as it hurt Zoro's ribs.

"I'm going to kill those bastard midget cannibals. Doing such an improbable thing to make me lose a bet." The cook says with venom.

"Lost? What do you mean lost?" He asks startled and looks at Sanji with wide eyes.

"What do I mean? What do _you _mean? That was by a mile the worst date I've ever taken anyone on, possibly the worst date that anyone in history has ever taken _anyone_ on. I mean, I realise you're new to this but being captured and very nearly boiled to death isn't the height of romance." Sanji snorts, leaning up on his elbows. At this angle Zoro can catch the saddened look on the cook's face, he realises that the cook is going to hold up his end of the bargain and that he's upset about that fact.

All he has to do is say nothing and the cook will stop his flirting, stop pushing Zoro to give in, stop asking for things that Zoro isn't prepared to give, things that he can't give. Just say nothing.

But… the date had been… good. It had been more than good, Sanji proved that he knew enough about him to make him feel like the centre of the world for a night. He hadn't pushed for anything that Zoro hadn't wanted, he'd just been… perfect. And this was a stupid line of thought because he already knew how much he really wanted to give into the cook, how much that when he was saying no because his head was telling him to that the rest of him was screaming yes. And the cook was making it worse by adding more and more weight to his case and dangling it before Zoro's eyes.

He knew rationally that it was a bad idea, that the two of them were almost certainly going to end badly and that one or both of their futures would be wrecked because of it. He knew what it was like to surrender to someone like that and just how much it hurt to have that destroyed and with the cook it'd only be worse because of how much he already valued their deep bond. All he had to do was to keep his stupid mouth shut and Sanji would back off and denying himself would be so much easier.

And it wasn't as if he was lying either, he'd already told the cook when they were on the date that he'd enjoyed it. If Sanji wanted to draw the erroneous conclusion that what happened afterwards counted against him then that was his business. So really, there was no reason to say anything.

"Technically speaking, it was the best date that I've been on." He says and surprisingly doesn't feel like kicking himself for saying so.

Sanji's eye widens and his face clearly shows surprise. After a second the cook rolls his eyes and a wry grin steals over his face.

"That's because it's the _only_ date you've ever been on." Sanji points out.

"Ah, true. It's also technically the worst date I've ever been on. But as long as next time you don't get us nearly eaten alive then you'll have improved." He adds with a smirk.

"Next time?" Sanji asks hopefully, his eye wide with glee.

"Next time." Zoro echoes affirmatively despite his better judgement.

Sanji's face practically splits in two with his wide smile and he launches himself at Zoro and plasters every inch of him to Zoro's side and kisses him roughly and gratefully.

"I didn't think that you would give me a second chance." The cook whispers excitedly against Zoro's lips and kisses him again.

Zoro kisses him back and presses his body more closely against the cook's own.

It's hard not to be stupid when it feels this good. He's not sure that he could deny Sanji anything if he asked him like this. If the cook asked him anything with those wide hopeful eyes then-

Oh. Shit.

Oh no.

Not again.

He sits bolt upright and stares in horror at the wall. He's felt this before, this weakness. This inability to say no when his head is insisting that no is the sensible answer. He's been fighting not to let himself get sucked into this again and he's failed.

He's in _love_. He's completely and irreversibly in love with Sanji and it's going to kill him.

"Oh shit sorry, did I get a burn? I've got so many on me too it's a wonder I didn't hurt myself too. You okay?" Sanji asks, his hand tentatively on Zoro's shoulder.

"I- yeah." Zoro answers brokenly.


	8. Chapter 8

Sanji is… bored.

He enjoys a break from work as much as anyone and despite the fact that he never seems to get one from being ship's cook he does enjoy a little downtime now and then. But that downtime should be filled with pleasures like sunbathing, reading books and flirting with pretty women. Or if his latest pastime is involved, flirting with an attractive green-haired swordsman.

Time off should _not_ be spent stuck in a medical room with nothing to do. He can read but not for long enough before Chopper puts new drugs in him that mess with his attention span. He likes reading but reading the same paragraph over and over because he can't remember it isn't fun. So it's not worth reading, cooking is certainly out of the question with his hands all burnt, Chopper won't let him go out in the sun and he can't flirt with the marimo while Chopper is around. All in all, boring.

He's barely even got Zoro to talk to at all because the swordsman is either passed out from strong painkillers or meditating away his pain. Right now is marginally more interesting because Zoro is polishing his swords under the watchful eyes of Chopper who is apparently worried that Zoro is going to start training given his swords and half a chance. That said, Zoro polishing his swords was marginally interesting an _hour_ ago. Now it's just dull. It doesn't even look like he's doing anything different with them as time goes on, so how can it take _this long_?

"I'm BORED!" He yells frustratedly.

Chopper spares him a sideways glance but goes back to reading his medical book and mixing his latest drug. Zoro doesn't even jump at his outburst, he doesn't even look at him! He just arches an eyebrow and continues polishing.

"And what do you want me to do about it idiot-cook?" Zoro remarks casually and runs the off-white polishing cloth along the blade of the white hilted sword.

"I don't know! Talk to me! ANYTHING!" He cries desperately. Zoro sighs and rests the sword on his knees and fixes Sanji a flat and unimpressed look.

"About what? The weather that we can't see from down here? About all the nothing that you did today? What's for dinner that you're not cooking?" He suggests flatly with a look and a tilt of his head towards Chopper that says quite clearly that anything _else_ they could talk about can't be discussed in present company.

Feeling defeated he flops back silently against Chopper's medical cabinet and Zoro goes back to carefully polishing his sword. Zoro is so careful and delicate with his weapons when he's cleaning them. His bored brain wonders idly if Zoro would be a careful kind of lover, the kind who takes things slow and perfect like how he is with his swords. He cuts that thought short because he's wearing rather loose shorts and nothing else and explaining away getting suddenly hard would be embarrassing in front of Zoro and awkward in front of Chopper.

"Oh god Chopper, can't I go? I promise I won't cook or sunbathe or _anything_ to make my burns worse. I'm going crazy in here." Sanji whines, stretching his head back.

"No." Chopper answers definitively, though somewhat distracted in his textbooks. Sanji lets out a disappointed whine and bangs his head frustratedly against the cabinet. Surely cabin fever is a more relevant medical concern here?

"Be quiet cook, you're starting to get on my nerves." Zoro growls and stops polishing his sword.

"You be quiet!" he shoots back and kicks the edge of Zoro's bed, itching for a fight because fights with Zoro are never dull.

Zoro sighs loudly, sheathes his sword and sets his equipment aside. He slides to the edge of the bed, ever careful not to let his feet touch the floor. He leans over and looks closely at Sanji.

"You really can't stand this here, huh? You look okay to me." Zoro says quietly and runs his eyes over Sanji to confirm his statement. Sanji tries to suppress the shiver that runs through him at that.

"That's what I keep telling Chopper but he won't let me go!" He whines quietly. Zoro tilts his head contemplatively before speaking.

"You _owe_ me for this. Remember that." Zoro hisses so quietly that Sanji almost can't hear him. He's about to question that last statement when Zoro throws himself against his bed properly again and howls in pain clutching his arm. Chopper is up in an instant and at Zoro's side, his back to Sanji.

"What is it Zoro? What hurts?" The little doctor asks desperately.

"My arm! It- aaaagh!" Zoro cuts off with a hiss of pain and clutches tighter at his inner arm.

"What kind of pain is it Zoro? Let me have a look!" Chopper squeaks and inspects Zoro's arm with fierce determination.

Sanji is actually worried for the swordsman because his pain sounds so real. That is until Zoro's head tilts around Chopper's little body and he mouths the word _'go'_ at him. Sanji suddenly catches on and slides silently off of his bed and out of the door to the infirmary with Chopper's attention firmly on Zoro instead of him.

He flees to the upper decks and finds Usopp, Luffy and Franky playing cards on the grass. He breathes out a sigh of freedom as a wave of gratitude washes over him and tries to think what he could cook Zoro to make up for that save when his hands are better. Zoro's not really a cake man but sweet things are often how Sanji likes to show his gratitude, perhaps some other kind of confection?

"Oh hey, here he is." Franky grins up at Sanji as he drops down onto the grass next to them.

"Here I am. I'm glad to be out of that medical room, I was going crazy in there." He agrees with a happy sigh and tilts his head back to enjoy sunshine for the first time in what feels like forever. He really, _really_ owes Zoro for that save, he wonders how mad Chopper is going to be with him when he works out that Zoro was faking.

"I bet you and Zoro were driving each other crazy being stuck together like that." Luffy snickers, his grin wide and his face mirthful.

"Ah, he can cope with boredom better than me. Probably comes from not thinking that much." Sanji responds without much feeling behind his words. Even if Zoro does seem to be more content doing nothing than him he knows that the swordsman's head is far from empty.

"I don't know, you two seemed to be getting along pretty well when I saw you last." Franky grins deviously.

Sanji feels his blood run cold and wonders when it was that Franky's seen them, he's not received any visits from the shipwright whilst he was awake, none that he was aware of at least. In fact on Chopper's orders no one has been allowed to see them, if Franky did catch a glimpse of them it must have been only fleeting before the reindeer herded him out. What could he possibly have seen? What does the blue haired man know?

"What do you mean?" He says evenly and tries not to look too concerned.

"Yeah, when I came by to see you the two of you after Zoro woke up for the first time you two were asleep in the same bed curled up with each other like kittens. So cute." The shipwright guffaws loudly.

"I- We were NOT!" Sanji snaps angrily. He's irritated that Franky caught them like that but he supposes that at least he drew an innocent conclusion from that rather than the truth, or he could have walked in when they'd kissed. The last thing he wants it anyone else finding out about him and Zoro, he's no idea how the swordsman would react to that but probably not favourably.

Luffy and Usopp burst out laughing at the apparently comical image of the two of them snuggling up in their sleep. This continues until Sanji starts threatening to kick people at which point the laughter quiets down to suppressed giggles.

"How are your burns Sanji? They look a little better than a few days ago." Usopp asks tactfully changing the topic with only a small snicker discrediting his good effort.

"Much better, thank you. It's just my hands and my back that'll be giving me any trouble now. It's gonna be a little while longer until I can cook again." He answers primly and looks at his still bandaged hands. The skin under them is thick and red from the heat of the pot's lid. They are the worst burns he'd ever had by a long way but he'd seen people burnt worse than him before and they'd cooked again after a while. As much as it pains him to refrain from his craft he knows all too well that he needs to treat his hands with respect and in this case that means giving them ample time to heal and not diving straight back into cooking.

"Take your time. Nami and Robin are cooking for now." Franky says with a nod and picks up a card from the deck on the floor, with a grumble he puts the same card back down.

Sanji relaxes at that and feels grateful that his nakama are being so understanding. Still, he wishes that they didn't have to stay docked at this godforsaken island for another three weeks for the log pose to set. He just wants to be far away from that horrible jungle and those fucking cannibals. He looks over warily at the island looming behind them and glares at the forest.

"Five of a kind." Luffy declares behind him and puts his hand down on the lawn.

"Luffy we're not- what game are you even playing? And how do you have five of a kind? That's not even- Luffy! You've got two threes of hearts!" Usopp exclaims.

"So… I win right?" The rubber captain questions with a grin.

"NO!" the other two yell together.

Later that night he's staring at himself in the wide bathroom mirror that covers an entire wall, it's not steamed up because his shower was almost icy cold. So far he hasn't been able to face putting himself in hot or even warm water just yet, for fear of awakening the memory of being nearly boiled alive, besides the cold feels good on his burns.

But now he's naked and standing in front of the mirror staring at the deep purple bruise on his hipbone from where Zoro bit him before. It's the first chance he's really had so far to look at it and it's captivating. He can see the darker purpling of the bruise in the line of Zoro's teeth.

He remembers the bite with startling clarity. Zoro had heaved him out of the water and held him together, his knees pressed against Zoro's ribs and the swordsman's firm hand against the back of his thighs. In the pitch sweltering blackness he couldn't see Zoro at all, but he could feel his forehead scrunched in pain where it pressed against his waist. At first Zoro had bared his gritted teeth in pain, lips curling back out of instinct. Sanji had shifted his weight to try and get a better angle at the lid of the pot, desperate to escape. The shift in weight must have pressed more weight onto a sensitive part of the swordsman's burning feet and Zoro had gasped out in pain. When his jaw had shut again the skin and muscle of Sanji's hip had been in between his teeth that were clenched tight in pain.

He fervently tells himself that the bite wasn't erotic, that it was Zoro's way of coping with the pain. But that in itself is troublingly arousing. Before all of this Zoro would never have let himself show weakness in front of Sanji, he was always so firm in maintaining the distance between them and emphasising how much stronger he was than him. But now it seems that he's slipped through Zoro's defences and the blossoming bruise on his hip is proof of that.

And _god_ does he ever wish that Zoro would leave marks like that on him from passion instead of pain, that Zoro would clamp his teeth onto Sanji's skin in the ride through orgasm. Or perhaps the swordsman would leave marks possessively, to show that Sanji was his and his alone. Heat coils low in his belly at that thought and he runs his thumb over the bruise and wishes that it were made in different circumstances.

Because it's not like he hasn't wanted this forever. Ever since he set eyes on Zoro and realised that _this_ man was the famous pirate hunter that he'd heard so much about he's wanted to either kick Zoro's face off or fuck his brains out at everything the man said. He'd spent the entirety of their journey together so far expressing that first instinct but the second was always there. Oh sure sometimes Zoro would just irritate him, but equally sometimes Zoro just pushed all of his buttons and all he could think about was ripping his clothes off.

And it doesn't exactly help that Zoro is stunningly attractive. Okay, so his usual scowl could probably sour milk just by looking at it, but under that are some very eye pleasing looks. Zoro's sharp cheekbones and firm jaw are impressive enough on their own and his dark eyes have certainly smouldered their way through Sanji's dreams too. But his real appeal lies in moments when Zoro stops taking things so seriously and being so grumpy and actually _smiles_. He's felt incredibly inappropriately jealous of people that they've saved when Zoro smiles honestly at their thanks because it makes Zoro's whole face just glow. Shoving aside grateful villagers just to throw himself on Zoro and molest him is hardly an appropriate reaction. So he usually just settles for starting a fight with Zoro because scowling Zoro he can deal with, even if it is starting to give him an unhealthy association between violence and lust that's probably going to bite him in the ass one day when a fight with a marine will get him hot and bothered.

He'd always stayed away from actually doing anything on the basis that his advances being rejected would be a disaster, and incredibly embarrassing should his lovely ladies figure out. But lately he'd been thinking that perhaps Zoro felt the same. He'd caught a fire in the marimo's eyes in a fight that couldn't just be explained away as enthusiasm. He swore he could see that same want in the swordsman's eyes as he was sure was obvious in his. So he'd gotten brave and suitably drunk and made his move. And at first at least Zoro had reacted beautifully, he'd been so, _so_ responsive and up until the point where Zoro had called him a 'fucking fag' and punched him in the eye it'd all been going beautifully. And it turned out that he'd been right on the money as far as Zoro echoing his desires, he'd found that out eventually too.

But this thing, this obsession with Zoro is spreading through him like a disease. He was fascinated with Zoro before in a kind of masochistic wanting what you can't have sort of way but now… now… it seems all he thinks about is Zoro. About how to get Zoro to agree to him, about what Zoro is thinking, about Zoro's latest revelation. He lays awake at night thinking about what Zoro's face will look like when he comes, what sounds he'll make and what his clever mouth will feel like anywhere on Sanji's body.

Shit. Thinking about the stupid marimo is making him hard like it always does. He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks for a moment. He can either ignore it and go on with the rest of his day but risk having all that arousal come crashing back at the slightest provocation or he can give in and get it out of his system for a while. Knowing that he's going to want to visit Zoro soon and prove to Chopper that he's not impeding his healing makes the latter a wise choice.

He curses under his breath and heads back into the shower turning it onto lukewarm for the first time since the cannibal incident. He lets the barely warm later sluice over him and calms the irrational panic that he's going to be cooked again and breathes out shakily and wraps a hand around himself.

For the millionth time in this situation his brain calls up an image of Zoro with swords drawn preparing to fight, that sends a flare of arousal through him just as it always does. He bites his lip and moves his hand along himself wishing it was Zoro doing this to him right here, the swordsman has probably done the same thing to himself in this same spot in the past. He gasps at that thought and bites his lip hard. As he speeds up his brain helpfully supplies the memory of Zoro flushed in the hot springs, his lips parted and red from kissing him. He remembers the way Zoro's hair darkened in the water and how irresistible his bronze skin looked when wet.

He imagines a thoughtful tilt to the swordsman's head, sending his earrings chiming at the movement. He imagines Zoro pulling him close, taking his hands and guiding them along the hard planes of his body. He can just picture Zoro's flushed but pleased expression as his fingers skirt along the other man's hard chest, along the ridges of that mark that Mihawk left on him, following it down into the dip of Zoro's hip. He imagines the way that the swordsman might groan when Sanji's hand tracks to the right and finally grasps his erection.

Sanji's eyes fly open and his fantasy abruptly derails as his orgasm rips through him and groans as he pulses hotly over his hand. He rests his head on the cool bathroom tiles as the water washes him clean. He knows he really needs to exercise restraint at the moment as Chopper's well meaning but infuriatingly watchful eyes prevent him from being anything but appropriate and somewhat distant with Zoro. He'd been doing so well in getting Zoro to see just what he was missing, but he'd not counted on the two of them being captured and then incapacitated with injuries. Now he couldn't even talk to Zoro about this nameless relationship that was starting to tentatively form between them. And worst of all he couldn't kiss Zoro!

It'd barely been any time since he'd first kissed the green-haired mossball after their big argument but he'd already grown used to being able to sneak his way against Zoro and press himself to the swordsman's impressive body and soft mouth whenever he wanted to. But now the sudden depravation of not being able to even flirt with the marimo is starting to drive him nuts. If Zoro doesn't heal up soon he knows he's going to be spending an awful lot more time in the shower conjuring up memories and fantasies about him just to maintain his sanity. If he doesn't then he risks a strong breeze tipping him over the edge in front of his nakama and that's seven different kinds of not-going-to-happen.

He turns off the water and dries himself off roughly. Before getting dressed he takes care to re-apply the burn salve on his still damaged skin. The patch on his shoulder blade where he hit the wall of the pot, the stripe on his left forearm where he leant on the rim of the pot as he paused in his escape to haul Zoro out of danger. There are a few other miscellaneous burns on his body but worst of all of them is the side of his hands. The stripe of skin along the edge of his little finger all the way down the side of his hand to his wrists where he banged on the lid trying to escape. It's a bad burn, and he'd rather not have hurt his hands at all, but if he had to then he probably would have picked the place that he actually burned.

With a sigh he dresses, still in a very light t-shirt to keep his burns cool. After that he makes his way up to the kitchen, bypassing the infirmary with Zoro in. Inside the kitchen Robin and Nami are slowly cooking dinner.

"You're not allowed in here Cook-San, don't make me tell Chopper." Robin says turning slightly and pointing one of Sanji's precious knives at him. Truth be told it makes him a little queasy to see someone else using his knives, even if he does trust them, it's like knowing someone else is wearing your underwear.

"I'm not allowed to cook, I'm still allowed in my own kitchen though aren't I?" he points out lightly.

The corner of Robin's beautiful mouth curls in amusement at his comment.

"Only if you're good." She smiles.

Sanji sits down on one of the barstools, which also feels weird when someone else other than him is cooking.

Nami taps a salad spoon against her lip thoughtfully and Sanji manages not to cringe at that because really that's just unhygienic, no matter how lovely a mouth she has.

"How is Zoro doing?" Nami asks carefully. Zoro has been a touchy subject for them since their argument and in truth this is the first time he's been mentioned.

"He's… better. I've not seen him this afternoon, I was going to take him dinner this evening when you ladies are done." He replies equally carefully.

Nami's gaze drops to the floor and her brow creases. She opens her mouth a few times to speak but says nothing.

"I was… worried. We all were. When you didn't come back I mean. Especially when Franky found you dragging him out of the forest all… It scared me. I'm so used to you two being invulnerable that I don't think that something like that could happen." Nami says with a scared quiver in her voice that makes Sanji only barely able to suppress the urge to gather her up in his arms completely and hold her until she doesn't feel like that any more.

"Zoro and I don't get on, not at all. He's lazy and gross and irritating, not to mention he owes me a ton of money. But… for a moment there when you dragged him back here with Franky, when I first saw you, I thought he was dead." She says with a sniffle.

"We're all lucky that he survived at all, no doubt thanks to you cook-san." Robin says magnanimously.

"It's my fault that we got in that mess in the first place. He heard something when they snuck up on us but I was too busy snapping at him to listen." He replies. He grits his teeth hard and tastes the nicotine from his now ruptured cigarette.

It's kept him awake at nights of course. Zoro insistent that he could hear something but his own anger at what he thought was Zoro's dodging the question of their date that he didn't listen. He'd strained his ears for a few seconds and heard nothing so he'd gone right on arguing with the marimo. Then out of nowhere came that rock that caught Zoro just right in the back of the head, sending a splatter of blood misting into the air and Zoro crumpling to the ground like a discarded child's toy. He could taste Zoro's blood in his mouth when the swarm of cannibals descended on them. He'd kicked and fought but it was dark and there were so many of them, several of them had tried to drag Zoro's unconscious body off so he'd leapt at them to protect Zoro's fallen body and got a fist to the back of his own head for his troubles. He remembered coming to in the dark pot and terrified that he could barely hear Zoro's shallow breathing, there weren't words for how relieved he was when he heard Zoro's slurred speech.

Robin's hand on his arm snaps him out of his self hating reverie and she graces him with a warm encouraging smile that he's sure mere mortals like him don't deserve.

"I- anyway. My point was that I guess I sometimes forget what he really means to me, he's not as easy to love as you are Sanji." Nami continues and Sanji finds himself unable to restrain himself from fluttering at that last comment. Nami patiently waits for him to calm down before continuing further.

"But Zoro is nakama, and you were right, I shouldn't have said what I did to you about him. And I'm sorry." She finishes with a sigh.

"You're more than forgiven my sweet mellorine." He smiles and presses a kiss to her beautiful cheek, he knows how hard Nami finds it to apologise to anyone so this means a lot to him.

Nami nods firmly and Sanji can almost see her drawing a mental line under the whole event. Nami is good at that, compartmentalising, dealing with things. He supposes that she had to be in her past. Maybe she'll change that habit, maybe not.

Sanji drifts off into his own thoughts for a while as Nami and Robin cook dinner. The sound of other people cooking makes him suddenly and irrationally homesick for the Baratie, for Zeff's chaotic yet orderly kitchen, for the man that he loves more than he ever loved his real parents but who also naturally raises such surly childishness in him. Life with Zeff was always a study in contradictions, he would shout at the old man because he just couldn't convey what it felt like to owe your life to someone like that. Gratitude and love mixed with anger and frustration. But then apparently Zoro saw through all of that, he spent barely any time at that floating restaurant that was Sanji's home for most of his life and the man who both was and was not his father. Zoro saw all of that and just knew the truth, knew that the Baratie was more than just a restaurant and that Zeff loved him like a son. But Zoro always did that, he was sometimes so oblivious and obtuse but he had these moments of clarity that cut sharper than even his swords. Just like everything in Sanji's life Zoro was a mess of contradictions, hell, their whole relationship was a contradiction. Perhaps that was part of the attraction. Every time Zoro said no Sanji could still hear the yes in there, and even when Zoro said yes he could feel the held back no in his words, that caution with recklessness.

He only snaps out of his thoughts when Robin touches his elbow and guides him to the table, he'd not even noticed the others come in. He sits at the table and eats, trying not to look at Zoro's empty seat. Even Chopper is sat at the table as apparently Zoro is sleeping off some painkillers. The food isn't bad, but Zeff would still have kicked him in the head if he'd served it back home. Pasta and vegetables with a creamy sauce that Sanji knows is made from the cream cheese in the fridge. He'd have added garlic and more salt as well as cooking the vegetables less, he might also have added a salad on the side, something light and crunchy with a zing of lemon to counterbalance and complement the pasta. But it's not his meal.

He finishes first and volunteers himself to go take Zoro's to him, he stirs it in the pot and dishes it with more care and artistry than the girls were able to. He winces at the heat that rises from the stove and stings his hands and for the first time since he was a kid he has to carry a plate with two hands.

The infirmary door opens with a creek as he toes it open with his shoe. Zoro is curled up under the blankets but the click of Sanji's hard heels on the floor make Zoro's eyes open sleepily. The marimo smiles at him slowly and lazily and Sanji's chest seizes suddenly, Zoro is almost painfully beautiful on the edge of sleep and he's no idea how he's lived with him this long and not seen it.

"Hey, food." Zoro rumbles, his voice still rough from sleep. He sits up clumsily and Sanji just manages to collapse into a chair nearby, he lights a cigarette to cover his nervousness.

"Hah, never thought I'd think I was spoiled, but when are you going to start cooking again?" Zoro grins around a mouthful of pasta.

"As soon as possible." He replies in a more level voice than he thought he was capable of at the moment. Zoro smiles at him again and Sanji finds himself even more desperate to heal up than before, it's stupidly and nonsensically possessive but he doesn't want Zoro eating other people's food if he can help it.


	9. Chapter 9

It takes a week before Chopper can be convinced to allow Sanji to cook again, and even then it's only under the provision that any food that needs to be actually heated is done by someone else. Nevertheless Sanji relishes in the chance to have his own space again, touching his own knives and making real food again.

The aching need to be able to really touch Zoro though is growing stronger by the day. The only time that he can really see Zoro is when he takes meals to him, and even then it's under Chopper's watchful eyes. He doesn't know when Chopper will release Zoro back to them but he does know that Zoro still can't, or won't, walk and this worries Sanji more than anything else.

He's rinsing salad under the sink when he hears Zoro's laughter outside for the first time, the sound makes him drop the leaves and sprint to the door. He opens the door and hurries out onto the balcony. Below him on the lawn deck Zoro is sprawled out on the grass bare chested and propped up on his elbows. Sanji notices that his feet are still carefully bandaged up but it becomes hard to see him as the rest of the crew minus himself and Chopper crowds around him.

"I thought Chopper wasn't ever going to let you out man!" Franky says clearly happy to have Zoro back.

"Technically he didn't let me out." Zoro grins cheerfully.

"How did you get out then? Can you walk yet?" Sanji shouts down from the railing. Zoro looks up at him, as if startled to see him there, but he beams happily and Sanji melts a little inside.

"Can't walk yet and even if I could Chopper banned me from doing so. And he said anyone carrying me would be thrown overboard by him. So…" Zoro trails off with a grin. Sanji is just about to ask how the hell Zoro got out then when Zoro shows him.

He straightens his arms and with a lithe flick of his body and the pulling of his powerful muscles Zoro pulls himself into a handstand. His spine arcs as Zoro tilts his head to grin at Sanji upside-down and he takes a few steps on his hands to demonstrate.

Sanji smiles warmly as the crew crowd around Zoro again clearly eager to talk to him again, everyone has missed him and worried for him whilst he's been confined to the infirmary, even sweet Nami who's beaming at Zoro like never before. When Usopp and Luffy start trying to set up races to see who can go the fastest walking on their hands Sanji decides to head back into his kitchen.

He smiles to himself and starts back on lunch, picking up the salad leaves from the sink again. He's missed Zoro more desperately than he'd thought possible but just because he's the only one on board who's desperate to rip Zoro's clothes of and lick every inch of him doesn't mean that he can monopolise Zoro's time. The swordsman will come and find him when he's good and ready and he can wait until then.

About half an hour later when Sanji is peeling carrots he spies two bandaged feet making their way past his window and towards the galley door, the sight on it's own is incredibly comical. He leans against the wall next to the door and waits for a few moments.

"You've not realised until now that you can't open doors like that without your feet have you marimo?" He grins at the shut door.

"Fuck you cook." Zoro retorts from the other side of the door.

_I wish you would. _Sanji thinks as he opens the door and smirks down at the upside-down swordsman who manages to balance on one arm long enough to flip him off with the other hand before padding in on his hands and unceremoniously dropping to the ground in a sprawl at Sanji's feet.

He leans back on the galley door and clicks the lock shut with a twist of his fingers. Zoro's eyes widen for a split second but Sanji is already dropping to his knees, he grabs Zoro forward into a bruisingly hard kiss. Zoro smiles against his mouth and tangles his hands in Sanji's hair and falls back, pulling Sanji on top of him.

"God, I missed this." Sanji murmurs against Zoro's mouth.

Zoro doesn't say anything but just laughs happily and lays back flat on the floor, looking at up at Sanji and smiling. Sanji pauses for a second as a feeling of otherness comes over him. Something is different. He's not quite sure what, perhaps it's his own imagination or simply not seeing Zoro for a while but he's sure that this particular look that Zoro's giving him he's never seen before. Not that he can even place what kind of a look it is, the swordsman's face is relaxed overall, but there's a certain softness in his smile and a shine in his eyes that is unfamiliar.

Zoro's hands reach up and catch his wrists, his thumbs running up into the palm of Sanji's hands. Zoro turns his hands this way and that, inspecting the burns Sanji realises, with a mild concern on his face.

"Do they still hurt?" he asks meeting Sanji's eyes.

"It's nothing I can't deal with." Sanji replies dismissively. And really it isn't. Zoro got the worst treatment out of the both of them in that pot so he's not going to complain about his lot when Zoro has it so much worse.

"Tch, there isn't much you can't deal with. I didn't ask if you could deal with it cook, I asked if it hurt." Zoro points out, giving Sanji an unimpressed look.

"I- yeah, a little. Heat makes it worse and I can't carry lots of plates like I could before yet, but it's not as bad as it was before." He answers. The thought occurs that Zoro might actually have been worried about him not being able to cook again. Although whether that's down to genuine concern or just not wanting to eat Nami and Robin's cooking anymore is anyone's guess.

"How about you?" he asks quickly and glances over his shoulder from his position sitting on Zoro's thighs to look at Zoro's bandaged feet. The gauze is even and meticulously done, Chopper has bandaged the burns to stop infection and to keep his salve in place with the added bonus of not exposing Zoro's unprotected skin to sunlight that it can't handle.

Zoro shifts uncomfortably under Sanji at that question.

"It's pretty bad if my feet touch the ground, let alone trying to stand. I'm not letting Chopper put any more drugs in me though, I can deal with the pain myself." Zoro grouches.

_Ah,_ Sanji thinks, _that explains the escape from Chopper then._

Trust Zoro to try to be all macho through the pain, it's probably only down to the marimo's soft spot for the little doctor that he's taken any painkillers at all before now.

"You're gonna be grumpy as hell when those wear off you know, not that you're going to listen to me telling you that it's a bad idea are you?" he sighs standing up and looking down at the sprawled out marimo.

"Not in a million years." Zoro smirks up at him.

Sanji rolls his shoulders and sighs once more before going to unlock the door. This was a Zoro thing and by now he was familiar with Zoro's stupid ideas, the man was one of those people who believed things like 'pain is weakness leaving the body' and shit like that. He seemed to think that putting himself through pain even when he didn't have to was doing something to further his pain tolerance when in all likelihood all it was doing was hurting. But Zoro was Zoro and there was no getting him out of this way of thinking. All he could do was shrug and let him get on with it. Zoro wasn't going to take being manhandled or babied through this either, the most he could hope to do was to surreptitiously mix up something for Zoro that might take the edge off of his pain. He might not be a doctor or a herbalist but you didn't get to be a cook of Sanji's calibre without knowing a thing or two about herbs that relieve pain.

With the door unlocked he steps over Zoro's legs, careful to avoid his injured feet and goes back to his work surface to get back to preparing food. There is a shuffle of Zoro presumably trying to get comfortable on the floor, something that Sanji doubts is possible.

About ten minutes later Franky loudly enters the room, jolting Zoro from the soft sleep that Sanji had watched him falling into.

"Unh, what?" Zoro grouses, unhappy at being woken.

"Hey, you don't look too comfortable down there buddy. Don't tell me Sanji's not letting you rest anywhere else." Franky frowns down at the green-haired swordsman.

"That's nothing to do with me. He can doze where he likes." Sanji snorts and de-seeds a pepper with fine precision.

"Lemme help you there then!" Franky says cheerfully.

"I don't nee-AGH! Don't pick me up!" Zoro squawks and Sanji turns to see Zoro flung over Franky's large mechanical shoulder. The shipwright is noisily making his way over with a squirming Zoro in tow, who without being able to kick at Franky is now reduced to thumping his fists on Franky's metal back.

"Here you go." The shipwright says pleasantly and drops Zoro into a barstool less than delicately.

Sanji realises that that stool has a footrest that Zoro really shouldn't be using as Zoro falls in what feels like slow motion onto the stool. He hears the thunk of Zoro's feet hitting the bar and the swordsman's face resembles that of a man just kicked in the nuts. Reflexively he pulls his knees up to his chest, nearly unbalancing himself in the process.

"Oops." Franky mumbles, apparently realising his blunder. Zoro glares up at Franky with the kind of intensity that has caused bigger men to run in fear.

"When I get my swords back Franky I will kill you, you're going to be scrap metal when I'm done with you." Zoro threatens, his voice shaky from pain.

"Ah- don't do that! I can fix this!" The shipwright squeaks and picks Zoro up again, ignoring the flailing man's protests to the contrary.

With a whoosh of displaced air Sanji's bar top is now filled with swordsman. The bar isn't all that wide, about half a meter, and is about the same height above Sanji's kitchen work surface. It provides both a decent space to tuck tools out of the way of the main work surface and provide a bar for drinking at if you're sat at the barstools on the other side. Apparently it also serves as a place to drop angry swordsmen.

"Fuck it, I'm going to kill you now." Zoro snarls, sitting up. His eyes snap to the side and rest on Sanji's knife block. Sanji's own eyes narrow at that. If Zoro touches his knives for the purpose of stabbing Franky then he'll have to kill both of them, even if Franky does deserve it.

"Franky. Get out of here now. If Zoro touches my knives to attack you because you've provoked him then you'll be lucky if I let him get to you. Zoro will kill you if he wants, but if you make him touch my knives then death is a luxury I won't afford you." Sanji growls forcing death into every syllable.

The big man pales and dashes out of the kitchen in fear, slamming the door after him in his haste. Zoro winces and falls back on the bar, his breath sharply hissing between clenched teeth.

"I wouldn't. Use your knives I mean." Zoro grits out, his fists tightening at his sides.

Sanji hums in agreements and walks around the edge of the bar to look at Zoro's dangling feet. They look fine, the bandages aren't mussed and there's no bleeding that he can see.

"There's no blood." He informs Zoro.

"Ngh. A small mercy. I hope Chopper strangles him." Zoro curses and forces his breathing to something nearing normal.

Sanji figures that it's best to let Zoro get on with the business of his own pain. And sure enough as Sanji continues to prepare lunch he watches the tension drain from Zoro's muscles as the pain evidently fades. After a while Zoro stretches languidly and rests his arms above his head, looking half like he intends to doze off.

In all honesty Sanji is having some trouble focusing on his task with the expanse of Zoro's shirtless body laid out before him right in his line of sight. It's hard to concentrate when it feels like there's just miles of dark honey coloured skin stretching out before him, lying tight and temptingly against the lines and hard ridges of Zoro's trained physique. It calls to mind the knowledge that in some places beautiful people, though in fairness usually women, are paid to lay out invitingly just like this and have people eat off of their bodies. The idea has never appealed until now, but with Zoro stretched out like that he's starting to consider that the idea has merit.

Eventually he gives into temptation and puts his knife down with a shaky hand. He tentatively reaches out a hand and lets his fingers brush Zoro's abs. The muscles under the skin jump and the sudden contact but then almost instantly relax again under his touch. Zoro opens one eye a fraction to give Sanji a curious look.

Sanji trails his hand upwards and he feels rather than hears the pleased rumble in Zoro's chest at his actions. Spurred on by the encouragement he flattens his palm on Zoro's chest and strokes up and down his ribs. He doesn't know if he wants to just memorise the planes of Zoro's body or whether he's just revelling in the unexpected joy that Zoro is letting him do this.

He leans forward and presses his lips against the side of Zoro's stomach, his left hand jolts at Zoro's sharp intake of breath. He darts his tongue out and tastes Zoro's skin, warm and slightly salty but with a hint of summer sunshine in there somewhere. At this close distance he can hear the muffled whine in Zoro's chest.

"Have you changed your mind? About us?" He asks, pushing up against the work surface with his right hand to give him the added height to lean down and press a kiss to the bottom of Zoro's navel. His other hand is now resting on the section of the bar by Zoro's head to support his weight and Zoro's reply sends a breath of warmth rushing along the inside of his wrist.

"No." Zoro replies in what is more of a gasp than a normal speaking voice.

Sanji considers this answer and places a kiss at the muscled hollow of Zoro's hip. He's satisfied by the instinctual jerk of Zoro's hips at that and lets his teeth scrape the skin there, his mind calling up the bruise on his own hip that Zoro left.

"Then why," he murmurs against Zoro's tanned skin, "are you letting me do this?"

"I- can we not talk about this? Please?" Zoro pleads gently.

"No. We cannot just 'not talk about this'." He mimics and bites Zoro's hip hard as punishment.

"Fuck! Look, it's a bad idea, we've been over this. Just because I'm not smart enough to say no when I should doesn't change that." Zoro snaps as he shoves Sanji's head away from him.

"You're wrong! This is a brilliant idea, you want this, I want this. What else matters?" Sanji hisses back angrily. He hates how Zoro can go from being so agreeable and pliant to repeating the same old bullshit again and again.

"It'll end badly, that's what matters!" Zoro snaps back into the same argument again as he sits up and fixes Sanji with a glare.

"Last I checked you weren't fucking psychic! You don't know that!" He shouts angrily, his hand closing into a fist on his work surface.

"It always does! I don't need to be a fucking psychic to know that the sun will rise tomorrow and I don't need to be one to know this!" Zoro yells and turns his back on him.

Sanji glares at Zoro's taut shoulder blades. It's not as if Zoro can storm out of the kitchen now with his feet how they are but Sanji knows that if they stay in the same room in this mood one of them will say something terrible and that didn't end well last time Zoro tried that.

"Fine." He mutters breezing past Zoro and out of the galley door. He needs to find Robin to actually cook the chicken for the strawhat's lunch and after that he might kick the shit out of something in the training room until he feels better. Surprisingly Robin is just coming up the stairs.

"I was just coming to see if you needed help with the cooking yet, it seems my timing was fortuitous." Robin smiles pleasantly at him.

"Is everything okay Sanji-san?" She asks after a moment, because apparently something unsettling is showing on his face that prompts concern from sweet-hearted Robin. He smiles with the practiced ease that he gained when waiting in the Baratie.

"Everything's fine, the chicken is all ready to be cooked. But ah… if you'll excuse me my princess." He smiles and steps past her to head down to the aquarium room. He'd intended to vent his anger but he knows full well that the training room will be so full of evidence of Zoro's continued training there that it'll only make things worse. Heading down into the aquarium to look at the soothing fish swimming might calm him.

He leans on the shut door and takes a sigh in the darkened room, only lit by the cool blue light filtering through the tank that dominates the wall in this room. He scowls now that no one can see him. Zoro's repetitive arguments are getting him no where and he's more than a little afraid that Zoro will pull back completely soon and not allow him an opportunity to woo Zoro and sway him into changing his mind.

Robin's concerned but indecipherable voice filters over to him and he looks around confused before he realises that he can hear her voice echoing down from the kitchen through the dumbwaiter that sits in one of the pillars of the aquarium room. He slides the door open curiously.

"I- yes Robin. I'm well aware of the situation I'm in." Zoro's voice echoes down to him.

"I'm just concerned for you Zoro, that's all." Robin's voice says with an edge of concern.

"I know. I'm just being an idiot is all, I know that." Zoro replies with an unhappy lilt in his tone.

"If you're sure you can handle it..." Robin's voice trails off with a sigh. Zoro grunts affirmatively in response and there's silence from then on. After a few moments he can hear the sounds of cooking.

Sanji frowns to himself. He has no idea what they were talking about? Zoro coming off of his painkillers? The two of them arguing perhaps? Though that seems unlikely and the conversation didn't really fit that.

He sits down feeling puzzled and stares at the fish in the tank until Nami sticks her head around the door and calls him for lunch.


	10. Chapter 10

Zoro manages to avoid Sanji for all of three days before he's back in Sanji's kitchen as if their last argument had never happened. Sanji doesn't know if he should thank the gods for returning Zoro to his presence or curse them for taunting him with something that he is apparently destined not to have.

Zoro's feet are a little better now, though he's still walking on his hands for most of the time he can bear to touch the floor with his feet enough to use them to hop up onto Sanji's kitchen counter and obscenely eat an apple in the cook's presence. Zoro's teeth crunch through the green flesh of the fruit and Sanji catches a glimpse of a pink tongue darting out to lick a stray droplet of juice. Sanji has never wanted to be an apple so badly in his entire life until now.

The original plan was for him to drive Zoro mad with lust until the swordsman cracked and accepted that he needed Sanji right _now_ and dragged him to bed, or whichever flat surface was closest. However that plan seems to be being slowly subverted by Zoro and it's Sanji who is finding himself going crazy over Zoro. He would suspect it's a carefully orchestrated turnaround if it wasn't Zoro who was doing it, that and the man seems so oblivious to what he's doing to Sanji half the time that it can't be intentional.

A drop of juice from the apple runs down Zoro's thumb and the marimo pauses to lick it off before continuing with his apple. Sanji represses a shiver and stares at the potatoes in the sink that he was meant to be scrubbing.

"Zoro." Robin says lightly as she enters the galley.

"Robin." Zoro echoes uninterestedly and crunches another bite out of the apple.

"Well, now that we've both agreed on our names I was wondering if you could help me with something." Robin smiles sneakily.

"'S'long as it's something I c'n do without movin'." The swordsman answers through a mouthful of apple.

"Don't talk to a lady with your mouth full you pig!" he finds himself snapping tensely. Zoro shoots him a look and swallows pointedly before opening his now empty mouth as if to say 'see?', except this has Sanji's brain skittering back into the gutter with thoughts of what that mouth could do to him. He turns back to the sink before his flushed cheeks give him away to Robin, he doesn't want her to know what things he's thinking about Zoro!

"These books seem to contradict each other, I was thinking that you might be able to verify one of them for me." Robin requests smoothly and holds two books up to Zoro.

Sanji is about to laugh at the idea and he's only stopped when he realises that he's not heard an acerbic reply or a laugh from Zoro. He turns his head to see Zoro's eyes scanning the page that Robin is holding open with keen interest shining in his face.

"Shit. Since when do you have books like this?" Zoro murmurs, taking the volume from her hands and reading more.

"The shop in town had them, I thought that they might pique your interest." Robin smiles, clearly pleased with herself.

Sanji is looking from Zoro to Robin and back again wondering when the aliens came down and replaced Zoro with this… this other person.

"In town? Please, _please_ buy me any that they have like this. I swear I'll pay you back every Beli." The marimo pleads wide eyed, looking up from the book for the first time since Robin handed it to him.

"Hah! No you won't! You're completely bankrupt and you never pay Nami back!" Robin laughs cheekily.

"Well, yeah. But I'll never pay her all the money she wants to why even bother trying? I would pay _you_ back for these in a heartbeat." Zoro insists and Sanji thinks that Zoro is actually smiling at her charmingly, Robin even giggles slightly at it.

He's well aware that he's frozen and gaping open-mouthed at the bizarre scene playing out before him, but the other two haven't noticed at bit.

"Don't worry. You can keep them, consider them a get well gift. Along with the other five in my room." Robin smiles waving a hand dismissively.

Zoro grins but his eyes are already back on the book, his eyes dancing rapidly from line to line.

"Oh, I see what you mean. This bit is wrong, incredibly wrong in fact." Zoro frowns placing his finger on the page and turning the book so that Robin can see.

"I _thought_ so! It completely contradicts what I've read of this second book." She smiles triumphantly.

"You know who this is talking about don't you? Ryuma. He was in Thriller Bark, he was the zombie that Brook's ghost was stuck in. Shusui was his sword. But… you weren't there when I fought him, you wouldn't have seen." Zoro murmurs thoughtfully and gestures at his three swords that are stacked in the corner.

Suddenly it all clicks into place for Sanji. The book is about a swordsman, of course Zoro would be interested. But it's still a surprise to see him reading. Not that he thought the swordsman was illiterate of course, and he knows he's not stupid but still… It's a pretty big surprise to see him getting all enthusiastic over books with Robin. He feels an uncomfortable prickle up his neck as Robin and Zoro continue to talk excitedly about this long dead swordsman. With a scowl he turns his attention back to viciously scrubbing potatoes under the running tap.

"You know he was the world's greatest swordsman of his time, he had what I want. This sword… it's already been wielded by the world's greatest, if I have my way it will again." Zoro smiles wistfully.

"The books keep talking about this character that he was trying to beat though, 'the King'. It says that he strived to beat this King person because he had a true warrior's spirit. Who was he?" Robin asks interestedly and Zoro's smile widens further. Sanji throws a clean potato into the colander and makes a decent attempt at removing the entire skin of the next potato with his brush. Since when do Zoro and Robin get on so well? He thought that Zoro still didn't really trust Robin or get on with her at all!

"Ah yeah, Ryuma spent all his time hunting for the King. People said that he was the world's greatest swordsman, that he was kind and good and had the spirit of a true warrior, he was obsessed with finding this guy. Thing is, the King was what people called Ryuma when they saw what he did. He spent the latter part of his life until he died trying to hunt himself down and beat himself." Zoro explains knowledgeably.

"There's a kind of terrible beauty to that." The archaeologist sighs softly, a far off look in her blue eyes.

"Thanks for the books." Zoro smiles, snapping the cover of the one in his hand shut. Robin nods agreeably at Zoro with a small smile on her face, Sanji thinks he sees her wave goodbye to him out of the corner of his eye but he doesn't turn to look or to wave back.

The door shuts after Robin, leaving the two of them in silence except for the shuffling of pages as Zoro flips casually through the second book and the furious scrubbing from Sanji's potatoes.

"Never had you down as a fellow bookworm." Sanji says flatly and tosses the potato into the colander with the others a little more forcefully than he'd meant.

Zoro pauses at that and looks at him over the cover of his new book, his dark eyes feel like they're boring into Sanji's brain. After a few seconds of silence Zoro puts the book down slowly and his face breaks into that snarky shit-eating grin that Zoro always used to get whenever he was about to say something that'd very deliberately piss Sanji off. This is probably the first time he's seen that grin since that first night on the beach.

"You're jealous." He says slowly, grin widening.

"I- I am not!" Sanji squawks indignantly.

Honestly, what did he care if Zoro and Robin were all chummy about books and long dead crusty swordsman? He couldn't give two shits about books or ex-zombie samurai. And really, the idea about him being jealous is ridiculous, Zoro doesn't even go with women. He's completely gay and not attracted to women, unlike Sanji who appreciates the finer characteristics of both genders. Even if he was jealous, _which he isn't_, he'd have nothing to worry about at all.

Although, Sanji considers as he feels suddenly colder, Zoro's never actually said that his affections lay exclusively with men. Just his sexual history so far has pointed that way. But it's not like he's ever shown any women any attention above a slightly vague disinterest unless the situation involves him getting to fight with someone. So he didn't have anything to worry about… right?

As if he could read Sanji's mind Zoro's grin only gets more self-satisfied.

"I'm not jealous!" Sanji repeats before Zoro's grin gets any wider and cracks his head in half.

"You _are_. There's just no pleasing you is there curly-brow? You tell me to get on with the girls better and when I do you get in a jealous strop." Zoro cackles as if this is the funniest thing in the world.

"I- Fuck you marimo! And your stupid fucking books!" Sanji snaps angrily and throws his scrubbing brush in the sink, entirely prepared to get into a full on fight with Zoro to settle this if need be.

Zoro laughs even louder at that before leaning over to snag a hand in Sanji's tie. He's about to grab Zoro's hand and try to snap his fucking fingers off when Zoro yanks him forward with said tie and presses a kiss to Sanji's lips.

Though Sanji would completely deny it he positively melts at that. Zoro's lips are hot and forceful against his own and when Zoro finally takes his other hand away from his precious new books and tangles it in Sanji's hair he actually lets out a pathetically needy whine. He opens his mouth hopefully and Zoro's tongue obligingly slides in and dances along the line of his. With a huff of heated breath Zoro pulls away, though keeping his hand wrapped in Sanji's tie.

"Believe me, you stand a far better chance at that than they do." Zoro murmurs against Sanji's tingling lips.

Sanji surges forward, desperate to kiss Zoro again. Ever since their date and the subsequent kidnapping there's been a different quality to Zoro's kisses, some deeper layer to them that heats Sanji's blood almost unbearably. He doesn't even know what's changed but he just wants more of it and hopes against hope that it means that Zoro's coming around to the idea of the two of them. Zoro pulls away though, keeping the distance between them the same. His hand drops from Sanji's tie and rubs his forehead as if to soothe a headache.

"Nnh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I'm just encouraging you." Zoro groans regretfully.

"Don't be, encourage away." Sanji insists breathlessly and leans in some more, but Zoro's hand against his chest stops him.

"My answer's still no Sanji." The marimo insists firmly.

Sanji steps back and narrows his eyes at Zoro. This is the thing that completely fucking throws him about Zoro, he says no, he says that they're a bad idea. He says no but then winds up sticking his goddamn tongue in Sanji's mouth and then says no all over again. But he can tell that Zoro doesn't mean that, if he did then he wouldn't keep giving in like he does. He doesn't think Zoro's being a tease for kicks, after all stopping seems just as unpleasant for Zoro as it is for him. So surely he wants this too. Which, Sanji can only deduce, means that eventually Zoro is going to realise how wrong his is and how dumb he is being by denying himself and eventually snap and completely give in. And boy is Sanji ever looking forward to the onslaught of that. He suspects that when Zoro finally gives in and lets go of all of that pent up tension and want it's going to be fantastic. It's going to be loud, furniture-breaking, clothes-ripping, bruisingly hard passion. Which is why he grins at Zoro smugly and steps back and says:

"You'll change your mind. I know it."

Zoro does not look impressed with this answer.

"Uh-huh." He answers monotonously and opens his book again, effectively ignoring Sanji.

The next day Sanji comes out onto the deck to call everyone for lunch, only to find Zoro the sole person on deck. And, shaded under the tree with the tyre swing, it's a few moments until Sanji spots him at all. After a quick look around the only other person he can see is Chopper up in the crow's nest room. Zoro turns the page of his new book and doesn't seem to notice Sanji's presence at all.

"Where the fuck is everyone? The first hot meal I'm able to cook myself and they all piss off somewhere?" Sanji grouses, irritated that food might go to waste and that his nakama were so thoughtless as to not tell him. Zoro looks up at him dazed and shuts the book, he'd clearly been off in his own little world.

"Hm, more for me I guess. Luffy'll probably cry when he hears that, what did you make?" Zoro asks in a way that completely doesn't answer Sanji's question.

"Fajitas. Where the fuck is everyone?" Sanji repeats irritated.

"That sounds good. Oh, hey. You know how we've not really told anyone anything about the cannibals?" Zoro says, scratching his neck absently, having apparently decided to finally answer Sanji's question.

"On the basis that we were on a date at the time and the more we told them the more awkward questions we'd get." Sanji confirms with a nod.

"Yeah, well Luffy was getting all riled up and complaining about 'people hurting his nakama', you know how he is. And Robin piped up that she had a good idea about where their camp might be from some rumours about ancient cannibalistic tribes she read about from a book she got in town. And Nami added that geographically speaking there were only a few places that the volcano could support a tribe large enough to feel the need to cook and eat two large adult humans. Luffy grabbed them both and set off into the forest screaming like a madman and everyone else except for Chopper charged off after them." Zoro explains carefully.

Sanji doesn't know what to think about that. On the one hand he's a little worried that Usopp won't let either of them live down the fact that they were taken down by knee high opponents, but on the other he's kind of pleased that something is going to be done about the cannibals. He's felt uneasy every time he's seen the shadowed outline of the volcano and knowing that they're up there somewhere, not that he thinks they're going to come down and spirit him away from the ship or anything of course. But still… he's well aware that it was mostly luck that got them out of the pot before they died, if the latch on the pot lid had been properly made then he wouldn't have been able to bang it open. And who knows how many other innocent people have lost their lives that way? And how many more still might in the future?

He chews the end of his cigarette thoughtfully and stares at the grass while he tries to work out how he feels about that situation. He notices that for the first time Zoro's feet are bandage free and exposed to the open air. The soles of Zoro's feet are a dark red from his burn, darker than the skin on Sanji's own hands went, clearly Zoro's burn is deeper. But at the sides of his feet where the burn meets healthy skin he can see almost healed burns. And here and there at the edge of the burn healthier looking skin is edging its way into the damaged skin.

"Hey, your feet." He remarks casually.

"Oh, yeah. Chopper let me take of the bandages provided I don't stand on them at all, they don't look as bad as they did." Zoro smiles and wiggles his pink toes for good measure.

"You know, lesser men might have had to have their feet chopped off from those burns." Sanji points out. He doesn't say however that he'd been exceedingly worried about that when they were escaping. He still remembered the damaged state of Zoro's skin when he pulled him unconscious out of the water and escaped naked into the jungle after grabbing Zoro's swords and kicking a few cannibals in the face. His feet looked a hundred times better than they did then, Chopper truly was a miracle worker.

"Good thing I'm not a lesser man then isn't it?" Zoro grins smugly, clearly well aware of his almost super-human healing abilities.

"I suppose. Go walk your dumb ass into the kitchen on your hands, you've got a lot of food to eat because I'll be damned if any of it is going to waste." Sanji orders.

"I can live with that. I won't have to protect my plate from Luffy for once." He laughs and pushes himself up onto his hands. Sanji watches fascinated as Zoro's bare abs contract to upend him. Despite the fact that he falls into handstands in fights all the time it's still something else to see Zoro doing it.

"Fuck… I really shouldn't find that as hot as I do." Sanji murmurs and delicately strokes a hand down Zoro's muscles.

"You are stupid ero-cook, what do you expect?" Zoro snickers and walks off upside down.

Sanji shakes his head and goes to fetch Chopper.

Several hours and one very substantial lunch later the rest of the crew return, scuffed, bleeding and triumphant. Chopper of course fusses and scolds everyone, saying that he doesn't need any more patients with Zoro and Sanji already on his books. That is until Nami sweetly compliments him on his excellent care and sends the poor little doctor into a happy embarrassed fit causing him to call everyone assholes and blush profusely.

Sanji waits for Usopp's inevitable teasing to begin, he can just imagine it. Usopp's tall (ha ha) tale and exaggeration of how small the cannibals really were, they're probably going to end up about only five inches tall in the final re-telling. However when Usopp does wander over to Sanji when it's time to do the dishes, a chore Sanji's still banned from on account of hot water being bad for his hands, the result is entirely unexpected.

"Vicious little bastards aren't they? And so many of them! One of them _bit_ me! Look!" Usopp exclaims and peels back a large plaster on his arm to reveal teeth marks.

"Hundreds of them swarmed on me, trying to eat me alive! No one else would have survived that but me!" Usopp declares proudly.

Sanji would bet his entire life savings that it was one cannibal that got a lucky bite in when Usopp was flailing around. But if Usopp's not going to be a dick about him and Zoro getting captured by a bunch of knee high cannibals he's certainly not going to ruin the sharpshooter's story.

"You were lucky to escape alive." He agrees with a nod and dries the next plate Usopp hands him.

Two days after that Zoro can finally stand again, though it still seems painful to do so he insists on doing it anyway. Sanji celebrates this good news by pinning Zoro to the fridge and ravishing him. Much to Sanji's delight Zoro seems to be going with it for once.

Zoro's face is flushed and his eyes are blown wide with arousal, not that Sanji needs to look at his eyes to tell that, Zoro's hardness against his hip is telling enough. He shoves his leg between Zoro's legs a little more and rubs his hip against Zoro. The swordsman groans, his head falling back and hitting the fridge with a loud thunk.

"Sanji… We-" Zoro starts with a frown.

No way, he can see where that sentence is going and he's not prepared to let Zoro chicken out now. He leans forward and bites down on the point in Zoro's ear where flesh meets metal, he discovered this entirely by accident the first time but it seems to always turn Zoro to goo, so he has no problems with exploiting this weakness. Predictably Zoro swears and his hips buck involuntarily against Sanji's.

Much to Sanji's pleasant surprise Zoro snags Sanji's tie and yanks him closer, pawing at his collar until the button comes undone and biting at the juncture where Sanji's neck becomes his shoulder. He moans at the pressure and Zoro bites harder. Sanji is sure that's going to leave a mark and he couldn't be happier about that. Moreover Zoro reciprocating is an incredibly good sign.

He wasn't expecting today to be the day that Zoro finally cracked, and he wasn't expecting the kitchen to be the place that it happened either. But whatever, the door has a lock, provided he can get to it in time. And as diligent as he is about meals being on time he's prepared for dinner to be late if it means that he gets to have his way with Zoro's apparently very willing body.

Sanji feels even more encouraged when Zoro's hands pull his shirt loose and find their way up his sides. He does the same to Zoro and sides his hand up Zoro's left side and curiously slides his thumb sideways until it catches on Zoro's nipple. A surprised squeak escapes Zoro's lips and Sanji bursts into laughter and does it again, apparently Zoro doesn't find this especially amusing and jabs Zoro in the side in retaliation.

Sanji goes back to kissing along Zoro's jaw, feeling confident that he's finally got what he wanted and even happier that Zoro seems to be just as pleased with the situation as he is. There's no mention of this all being a terrible idea, no nervousness at all.

"I knew it." He purrs quietly into Zoro's ear. Zoro makes an inquisitive sound and rubs at Sanji's hipbone.

"I knew you'd agree that this was a good idea sooner or later, I told you it'd feel good Zoro-kun." He elaborates, smiling happily.

His hand is still on the side of Zoro's ribcage and he feels the sudden snap of tension in Zoro's muscles and he realises suddenly that Zoro's holding his breath. Zoro's hands have frozen on him before Zoro pulls away all at once.

"Zoro-kun?" Sanji blinks confused.

This time he's far enough away from Zoro to see the twitch in his eye at that. The swordsman's fists ball at his sides suddenly and Zoro's face darkens like a storm cloud.

"Don't _fucking_ call me that! Ever!" Zoro snarls sounding furious.

"I- what? You've got no problem with me calling you marimo and moss-brain but the moment I call you Zoro-kun you freak out?" Sanji splutters, feeling floored at Zoro's incomprehensible anger. There it is again, that twitch and a twang of tension in Zoro's shoulders that Sanji can see from several steps back. He didn't even realise that he'd backed up but Zoro's anger is so oppressive that he's not exactly surprised at the instinct his body has to back off.

Zoro storms past him, banging into his shoulder on the way past. He stomps out of the kitchen, wrenching the door open violently and slamming it behind him.

"What the FUCK Zoro?" Sanji yells angrily after him.

He stares openly at the shut kitchen door feeling perplexed, hurt and still irritatingly hard. Seriously Zoro, what the _fuck_?


	11. Chapter 11

Sanji is a smart man, regardless of what certain marimo-haired bastards might say otherwise. And, okay, he might not be as smart as someone like Robin is but he's smart and he's cunning too. By now he's worked out that this push and pull of Zoro's affections towards him is about more than just Zoro not having the conviction to stick to his decision. He thinks that it's fear on Zoro's part. Which, in a way is crazy because he's not sure that he's ever seen Zoro scared of anything. But the way Zoro's reacted to things so far, especially that twang of tension when he foolishly called Zoro 'Zoro-kun' really felt like fear. It doesn't take an genius to work out that Zoro's objection wasn't to terms of endearment but rather to that specific name, and it really doesn't require a great amount of intellect to connect that reaction to the ex-lover of which Zoro refuses to speak.

Tactically it would be better if Sanji abandoned the impulse to speak to Zoro at all and just got on with physically seducing him. Because really his body has been doing its job in getting Zoro to give in, it's just his big mouth that keeps messing the situation up. But since he can't stay quiet forever he knows that's not an option and that he'd open his mouth sooner or later and spook Zoro, and the further along they are when that happens the worse it'll be. So he needs to figure out the layout of this minefield that is Zoro before things go any further.

He also knows that Zoro has no intentions of telling him anything or being at all cooperative. Which is why he's timed this so very well.

He quietly opens the door to Zoro's room and eyes Zoro's half-naked form sprawled out under the covers. It's about ten in the morning but Zoro's been on watch all night so he's trying to catch up on sleep before lunch. Usually Sanji would let him, but then again he's not usually trying to pry information out of a recalcitrant swordsman.

As he steps in the room he considers that startling awake a deadly accurate man who sleeps with swords by his bed isn't the best idea, but he's halfway into the darkened room now and he's not going to stop. He makes sure to let his shoes thunk loudly on the floor just in case. A sliver of white and black shows as Zoro's eye opens ever so slightly.

"Nnnh. Sanji?" He groans, his voice thick with sleep and closes his eyes again.

"Yeah, it's me. Don't worry it's not lunchtime yet." Sanji whispers and perches on the edge of the bed.

"Oh." Zoro mumbles sleepily. After a few moments of consideration he adds, "Fuck off then, I'm sleeping."

"I wanted to talk to you." Sanji answers, deliberately not rising to the bait of a fight that Zoro threw out there even though he's half asleep.

"Sleeping." Zoro whines and rolls onto his side, curling around Sanji's back. Sanji feels himself practically glow at that, Zoro's not a massively affectionate person, he's not the kind to drape himself all over people, so the little things mean more. The way that Zoro curls around him thoughtlessly shows mountains of trust. He frowns at the fact that Zoro seems to completely trust him in some areas and apparently not at all elsewhere. The asymmetry hurts and he really needs to know why Zoro can't trust that he won't hurt him and won't ruin everything between them.

He tangles a hand in Zoro's green hair and finds himself pleased at the small pleasurable sound that Zoro makes. He scratches his fingers along Zoro's scalp for a while until Zoro rolls onto his back and stares lazily up at him.

"What?" He asks sleepily and catches Sanji's hand in his own, knotting their fingers together out of reflex. And there it is again, that quiet unconscious trust that is sometimes so obviously there and other times so painfully absent.

"Why don't you trust me?" Sanji asks quietly and watches the slow reaction play out across Zoro's sleepy face.

"I trust you." He answers sounding confused, his forehead furrowed in thought.

"Not with this though." Sanji continues, tapping a finger on Zoro's chest, just above his heart. He stops and rests his hand there, he can feel the sluggish sleepy beating of Zoro's heart under his palm.

"That's different." Zoro frowns and sits up.

"It really isn't." he retorts and lets his hand fall away. He frowns and rubs his forehead, this isn't going right, not how he planned.

"Just… just tell me what he did. Whatever it was that hurt you so bad, whatever it is that's got you so scared of this." Sanji sighs. Zoro's response is predictable and if Sanji had been so inclined he could have mouthed along with Zoro's words.

"I'm not scared! You don't scare me!" Zoro snaps, glaring at Sanji.

"Good, I don't want to. If you're not scared mind telling my why you're acting scared of this then?" He asks, gesturing between then in some vague approximation of whatever the hell kind of fucked-up relationship the two of them have.

Zoro just glares at him with dark eyes but that look hasn't affected Sanji in a long time, all it does is let him know that Zoro is displeased with the way the conversation is going, it doesn't intimidate him at all. And really, why would it? If Zoro wanted to hurt him then he would, and if Zoro wanted to kill him then he'd be dead before he knew it. So what threat does a glare hold? He presses forward because he can't keep being stuck in this land of almosts with Zoro, if he pushes Zoro he'll either get what he wants or Zoro will shut him out for good and either way Sanji needs some kind of certainty.

The thing is that he didn't even know this before he went in here, he'd come in with the intention of finding out about Zoro's past but now he realises that he came here to try and push their relationship one way or the other. And he needs Zoro like he's not sure he's ever needed anything in his life before, he just wants Zoro to be his, he wants Zoro to smile secretly for him and to wake up warm and relaxed in the same bed as him. This whole thing started as a want to fuck Zoro into oblivion because of some unknown trigger in him that Zoro ruffled which made him want to make Zoro scream in pleasure for him but now… Now this has mutated into something more, he wants Zoro but he want all of him and the thought is too big to fit into Sanji's head all at once and he doesn't even know what it is that he wants from Zoro except that it's new and strange and more than anything else that he's felt before.

"Nnh. I'm sorry, I just want to understand this. You don't make any sense Zoro." He sighs and runs a thumb along Zoro's cheek and wraps his fingers around Zoro's neck.

"Tch. Love-cook." Zoro tuts and leans forward to kiss him. Zoro's mouth is soft and there's a scrape of stubble on Sanji's chin and he realises with a spike of arousal that Zoro hasn't shaved today. Zoro licks his way into Sanji's mouth and with a grin Sanji leaps on the opportunity to tease him.

"Gah, you taste like old socks Zoro! Go brush your teeth!" He yells with a grin and shoves Zoro's chest.

"Fuck you, I'm still in bed!" Zoro retorts and knees him in the back.

"Hmm, I wish you would." He grins, hearing his own voice drop several notes.

"Hahah, get lost. Don't wake me up again unless you've cooked me something really tasty, I need to sleep." Zoro laughs and shoves him off of his bed.

"If I cook something really good can I get in there with you?" Sanji asks with a wiggle of his eyebrow, Zoro laughs louder and throws a pillow after Sanji.

Sanji cooks a vegetable risotto, it's tasty and the saffron lends both a deepness to the flavour and a brilliant yellow colour to the rice. Nestled into the rice are finely chopped vegetables, peppers, beans and sweet corn shining like gems within the food. As a concession to the more carnivorous members of the crew he includes finely sliced cured meats on the side selected precisely because they compliment the flavour of the risotto.

Zoro wanders in with the rest of the crew, a sleepy ball of calm in the otherwise chaotic straw hat galley at mealtimes. Sanji realises that he's staring. Zoro is shirtless still, barefooted and wearing only pyjama pants. He looks… peaceful and wonderful and Sanji can only just resist reaching over and touching him. A some strange feeling twists in his gut and he can't stop wondering when Zoro became almost everything that he thought about.

The conversation and the meal bypasses Sanji almost completely and he's only roused back to the world when Zoro stands up with the others and heads out of the galley. He notices Franky giving him and odd look and he realises with some surprise that the cyborg has been trying to get his attention for some time now.

"What?" He blinks trying to remember what Franky said.

"I _said_ I think it's my turn to help with the washing isn't it? What's with you lately? You're all spaced out." Franky says rolling his eyes and standing up to gather the plates.

"I'm fine. Really." Sanji frowns and wonders if his behaviour lately really has seemed strange to the crew.

"You sure? I mean, because if you're worried about the cannibals, don't be. We took care of them." Franky asserts with a dark edge to his voice.

"So I heard." Sanji laughs. Luffy seemed to feel heaps better after his vengeful assault on the cannibals, the rubber-man never liked leaving slights against his nakama unresolved, especially near fatal ones. Still, perhaps his behaviour has come off as traumatised to his nakama, which isn't right really. Okay so he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to boil a lobster again in his life after nearly facing the same fate but other than that he was okay. He should probably say something to reassure Franky of that fact, he didn't want his nakama worrying about him.

"Honestly, I'm okay. It's just- hah, never mind. You wouldn't even believe me if I told you." Sanji chuckles, pinching the bridge of his nose. And really, who would believe it? He and Zoro had spent most of their time thus far yelling at each other, bickering or fighting and now that intensity had been almost entirely redirected into this almost love-affair that they were having.

Franky gives him a considering look and scratches the side of his metal nose thoughtfully as Sanji busies himself with turning the tap and filling the sink with hot water.

"Is it Zoro?" Franky asks suddenly. In his surprise Sanji turns the tap too far causing a torrent of water to spurt out of the tap at high speed and ricocheting off of the side of the sink to spray him. He curses and switches the tap off with some fumbling. Nervously he looks over to Franky and laughs tightly.

"I don't know what you mean." He says nervously.

Franky looks less than convinced.

"What about him?" Sanji asks, his tone flat and not giving anything away. He doesn't know how much Franky knows and he'll be damned if he's going to tell him anything. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it to cover his nervousness and give him an excuse in delaying answering any other questions.

"You tell me. The two of you were all at each other's throats like usual a while back and then you had that big bust up and things between you two were awful for a while. And then… I don't know, the two of you suddenly changed. Hell, if we'd known that all it took to make you two get along was to nearly boil you to death then we'd probably have done it to you ages ago." Franky laughs loudly.

"So? What's your point?" Sanji asks tersely, blowing out a stream of smoke.

"No point, just curious. I never understood why you two fought so much in the first place, you're pretty similar apart from the superficial differences." Franky points out. A while back Sanji thinks he might have taken offence to that, but Franky is right, Zoro's complete indifference towards the fairer sex and understanding the social norms about not showing up to meals covered in sweat and dirt aside they were pretty similar.

"We're fine, we're getting on better like you said. It doesn't matter." He shrugs with forced nonchalance.

Franky looks at him for a little while with a considering expression. Zeff used to look at him that way when he thought Sanji was trying to bullshit him, which in fairness he usually was when he got that look. He realises that perhaps trying to fool someone considerably older than him is not the smartest idea.

"What you mean is that you don't want to tell me whatever this is. You should have just said that." The cyborg points out, looking displeased.

"Would you have listened?" Sanji challenges, his hand tightening on the edge of the sink.

"Probably not!" Franky laughs loudly, dissipating the tension in the room.

After that they pass the time washing up and making small talk about how they're leaving the island soon. The general consensus of the crew is that they'll all be glad to have this island to their rudder.

That evening Sanji notices the pattern starting to repeat again. He's had Zoro pressed up against the counter for some minutes now, he's even found that stroking his fingers along Zoro's neck just _so_ causes delicious little keening sounds to slip from Zoro's lips. This time however he doesn't even get the chance to say anything dumb before Zoro gently pushes back and sidesteps out of Sanji's grasp. In fact it was Zoro who spoke just before they broke apart. Some combination of 'oh god I-' that cut off before Zoro started making any sense.

But Zoro's just standing there hand over his own mouth like Sanji had tried to bite off his fucking lip or something and staring wide eyed at Sanji.

"What _now_?" Sanji snaps because, really, he's had enough of this back and forth that leaves him achingly hard but alone.

"I- I have to…" Zoro trails off and backs out of the room quickly.

Sanji snarls and starts tenderising a steak with more force than is really necessary or, from a culinary standpoint, advisable. When he sticks his head out of the door and yells to everyone that dinner is ready Zoro doesn't show. Sanji glowers at his steak and eats it angrily without paying much attention to the taste. The others are subdued and watching him warily, everyone knows that you don't miss a meal if you don't want Sanji angry at you. Apparently Zoro can't stand to be around him so much that he'll even risk the wrath of an angry cook.

The moment he's done he abruptly puts down his cutlery with a little more force than he'd intended and stands up a little quicker than he'd intended too.

"I'm going to look for Zoro, anyone know where he is?" He growls out and even to his own ears his voice sounds menacing. Usopp, the coward, speaks up.

"I- ah, saw him heading to the shower a little while before you called us to dinner but that was a while ago." Usopp squeaks, recoiling from Sanji's gaze.

He straightens up and storms out of the door, he's just pulling open the door to the corridor that leads to the men's bunkroom below and Zoro's room and the bathroom down the hallway.

"Sanji! Wait!" Robin calls after him on the balcony above.

"Later Robin." He says sharply and shuts the door after him quickly. He stamps down the hallway brimming with barely controlled rage and frustration as he stops at the bathroom door.

He can still hear the water on in there and that just makes him angrier, Zoro is using up all the hot water and leaving none for anyone else. He turns the handle and is surprised when the door falls open instead of rattling angrily like he'd intended. The combination bath and shower is before him with the long bathroom mirror to his side by the door, so it's not as if his first view is unhindered.

He was angry moments ago, and he probably still is somewhere inside him, but right now the shock has taken over. The shock of the door falling in makes him stumble and just stare at the sight before him. Zoro is in the shower, or sort of. His back is against the tiled wall to his side so Zoro is effectively facing him, most of him is out of the spray of the shower, except for his legs and, Sanji swallows thickly, _that_.

Sanji has seen Zoro naked, flashes of bare skin when changing in the same room before and of course he saw all of Zoro when they were escaping from the cannibals. The first however were hardly erotic situations and the second was so marred by the fear of death that he never spared a second thought to Zoro's nakedness. The same cannot be said of now. Now is most definitely a situation in which he is able to appreciate Zoro's body, and judging by the sudden tightness in his pants he's appreciating it plenty.

Zoro naked is… magnificent. The man spends practically all of his time working on his body, though out of a need for strength than vanity, and it certainly shows. His muscles are perfectly sculpted even when he's relaxed like this, a perfect combination of strength in their bulk and flexibility in their tone. Zoro's head is tilted back, his head pressed against the wall with his eyes shut and his mouth slightly open. Sanji's eyes as always drop to Zoro's long scar, tracing it down it's path through Zoro's chest and abdomen. His eyes fall lower, time having slowed down enough for him to take in the sight but not enough for him to feel guilty for staring just yet. The spray from the shower starts hitting Zoro at his navel and following down from that is a trail of coarse looking hair, and yes it too is green. It's only when he spots that Zoro is half-hard that his senses come back to him and a turns on his heel, his face burning.

"God Zoro! Haven't you ever heard of a lock?" he stammers flushing even further. He can see Zoro in the mirror, though slightly fogged from the steam. Zoro's eyes open slowly and he looks evenly at Sanji's misted reflection, the eye contact makes Sanji's breath hitch.

"You're the one who barged in here. Go away." Zoro says tonelessly. The utter lack of emotion in Zoro's voice makes Sanji turn and stare at him, regardless of Zoro's completely uncovered nudity.

Zoro's eyes are shut again, though his forehead is slightly creased almost as if he's in pain. He worriedly glances down at Zoro's feet but they seem fine, and the lack of tension in his legs doesn't suggest that his burns are what's troubling him. The expression on Zoro's face is difficult to place but it almost looks like… resignation, Zoro looks defeated and weary. Those are two expressions that he's not used to seeing on Zoro's face and it worries him.

"Zoro? Are you okay?" he asks worriedly. He considers reaching forward to touch Zoro, he's only wearing a light shirt and linen trousers, nothing that he would mind too much if it got wet. Ever since the boiled-alive incident he's been a little too sensitive to heat and not as yet willing to cover himself up under clothes again more than he has to. Still, if something's wrong with Zoro then he's not going to back off. He toes out of his shoes partially in case they get wet and partially to put Zoro at ease if he's worried about being attacked, not that the swordsman looks worried about that.

Zoro doesn't answer him but laughs flatly, as if the idea of him being okay is laughable. He opens his dark eyes and looks at Sanji with a soft and strange kind of expression that he can't decode but realises that he's seen a lot from Zoro lately.

"Zoro?" He repeats again, hoping to prompt some kind of answer from him. He reaches through the spray of the shower and touches Zoro's chest. Zoro hisses and arches under his touch and for a panicked moment Sanji thinks that he's hurt him, that is until he glances down and realises that Zoro is rapidly hurtling away from being half-hard and into being fully hard. Ah, not pain then. Any further doubts he had about that are banished the moment Zoro opens his eyes again and looks at him, his gaze dark and half lidded.

"What does it matter," he mutters so quietly that Sanji can hardly hear him and doesn't know if he's even meant to.

"I'm going to hell anyway. Might as well." Zoro mumbles.

Before Sanji can even question this odd statement Zoro surges forward, grasps Sanji's shirt and hauls him backwards into the shower. Because this is a shower bath however Sanji's shins hit the edge of the bath on is way over quite painfully and it's only with quick reflexes that he doesn't land face first in the bath with Zoro and instead manages to land vaguely on his feet though clinging on to Zoro for fear of falling.

Zoro yanks Sanji closer and kisses him bruisingly hard. Zoro's body does it's best to plaster the two of them together, pushing himself away from the wall and against Sanji, one leg tangling around the back of Sanji's own and their hips connecting with an obliging roll from Zoro that sparks a jolt of lust through Sanji's own body. He's aware, almost academically as every other part of his brain is still just busy with the idea of 'huh?', that he's getting completely soaked from both Zoro's wet body and the shower spray that they're both now fully under. He can't bring himself to care about that however, not when Zoro is here like this with him.

He kisses Zoro back intently and finds that Zoro is more pliant and willing than Sanji has ever known him, before there's always been an element of restraint in the swordsman, a sense of control, however small. But now it feels like Zoro's completely surrendered, not that Zoro is passive by any means, but it feels different.

Zoro takes this opportunity to turn and pull Sanji about until Zoro has him pressed against the cool tiles, one arm braced by Sanji's head and the other pushing a hand up Sanji's completely soaked and now slightly see through shirt.

"Fuck, Zoro. I swear if you change your mind and run off again now I'm gonna fucking die." He rasps and Zoro kisses his neck and unbuttons Sanji's shirt.

"I need you." Zoro answers breathily. Sanji's hips jerk forward at that and Zoro's hands forgo unbuttoning his shirt to fumble with the button on Sanji's trousers instead.

Sanji has absolutely no idea what's going on with Zoro or what even brought this sudden turn in behaviour on but he knows better by now to talk and ruin everything. Zoro is kissing along the side of Sanji's neck when the button on his trousers finally comes free and the weight of the water now soaked into them drags them down until they catch at his knees.

Zoro drops down onto one knee and tilts his head to kiss and nibble at Sanji's hip bones, lips just ghosting over the now almost completely faded bruise that's excited Sanji so much at every look at it. He just stares down at Zoro in something between surprise and awe. Zoro's hair is made darker and flattened by the torrent of water, it's sticking to his skin and looks longer now that it's too heavy with water to fluff up like the marimo that he calls it after. Instead dark green strands hang almost to Zoro's eyes and plaster themselves to Sanji as well when Zoro leans in to explore the juncture between Sanji's thigh and hip.

Without preamble Zoro divests Sanji of his underwear, careful not to catch Sanji's cock on the way down. Sanji realises with a start that he's not sure if he's ever been this hard in his life or if it's even possible to get any harder than this without passing out from not having blood in anywhere else in his body. Zoro looks up at him through short dark lashes and Sanji rapidly changes his mind about it not being possible to be any harder than this. His whole body feels alive, his blood is pounding rapidly in his ears and every place that Zoro's touching him feels electric. The water from the shower is playing even further with his sensitive nerves and he finds himself already trembling under Zoro's touch but still desperate for more.

When Zoro pokes out his tongue and traces the lines and edges of the head of Sanji's cock with it Sanji isn't sure whether it's the feeling of Zoro's hot tongue on him or the sight of Zoro carefully exploring him with that tounge that has him trembling more. Sanji realises that he seems to have forgotten how to breathe properly, as his breath is coming in irregular gasps and stutters. This isn't at all helped by Zoro's left hand trailing upwards across Sanji's abdomen, making all the muscles there jump desperately for Zoro's touch.

Without warning Zoro goes suddenly from just experimentally licking the head of Sanji's cock to enveloping the entire thing with his mouth. The shock of the sudden sensation of Zoro's hot wet mouth snaps Sanji's head back so suddenly that it cracks on the tiles, sending his vision starry for a few seconds.

When his vision does clear he stares down at Zoro and finds that the sight of his dick having completely disappeared into Zoro's mouth along with the sensation of Zoro's tongue along the underside of him almost makes him come then and there. He squeezes his eyes shut and hears curses fall from his own lips as he really tries to regain focus. Because okay, yeah, he might be nineteen but coming instantly in Zoro's mouth the second that Zoro takes him in would be incredibly embarrassing and not nearly as fun as Zoro taking time to bring him to that point.

Zoro's tongue flattens out inside his mouth and he licks up the underside of Sanji's cock slowly and deliberately, as if he's trying to map it with his tongue. Sanji practically doubles over at that, curling around Zoro and fisting a hand in green hair as a silent prayer to slow down for just a second or else this is all going to be over far too quickly. Apparently though Zoro likes having Sanji fist his hair hard enough so that it should hurt and the pleased purr that reverberates up Zoro's throat at that nearly pushes Sanji over the edge all over again.

"Fuck Zoro! Slow down!" He yelps, hands clawing at the tiled wall behind him.

Zoro looks up at him challengingly, the quirk of his eyebrow quite clearly is a teasing question about Sanji not being able to hack it. This is at least familiar territory for Sanji, Zoro challenging him about something, seeing who can win in some stupid competition between the two of them. But it does the job, his inbuilt reflex to outdo Zoro in any challenge flares and he suddenly finds himself much more in control.

"Slow down?" Zoro asks, his voice only slightly distorted by the fact that Sanji's cock is still quite definitely in his mouth. Sanji gapes at that, it shouldn't be possible for Zoro to say anything with Sanji in his mouth and that's not down to any egoism over size and more the fact that Zoro has a mouthful of dick which should be enough to stop _anyone_'s speech.

"Wh-how?" He stammers wide eyed.

Zoro arches an eyebrow at him like he's a moron and the thought suddenly occurs: Zoro talks around his sword all the time, he's learnt to talk with something in his mouth even if it's not how he's got Sanji in his mouth now…

"Fuck. I'm never going to be able to hear you talk with a sword in your mouth again without getting hard am I?" Sanji groans knowing full well it's the truth. The deep chuckle that rumbles up from Zoro's chest vibrates through him, causing him to curse even more.

Zoro apparently thinks that the appropriate response to that is to surge forward until his nose is buried in Sanji's blonde hair and Sanji's dick hits the back of his throat. Sanji's hips automatically buck at that but Zoro's hands come up and slam Sanji back against the shower tiles, his hands hard enough on Sanji's hips to bruise. That thought alone makes Sanji moan loudly and when Zoro slowly and deliberately swallows creating a beautiful amount of pressure around Sanji he realises that he's being incredibly vocal.

He tries to stop being so loud, he really does, but Zoro's making that incredibly difficult, especially when his other hand gets involved with Sanji's balls as well. Zoro's tongue is some brilliantly wonderful tortuous thing, he really _really_ wants it on him longer but he can already feel the tell tale coil of heat in his belly, the tingle at the end of his spine warning him that he's close.

"Zoro!" He says in a strangled voice and fists a hand in Zoro's hair, trying to tug Zoro backwards in warning. He's never appreciated when his lovers haven't warned him about this so he's hardly going to subject Zoro to swallowing for him. Zoro growls at that and surges forward, his movements becoming faster and more intense.

The force of Sanji's orgasm bends him double, his body almost curling around Zoro's as he tries to ride out the waves of pleasure that are whiting out his vision without screaming something incriminating at the top of his lungs that'll let everyone on the ship know what they're up to. He bites his own lip almost hard enough to bleed and tightens his fists in Zoro's hair until exhausted and feeling like every bone in his body has melted he falls into a tangle in the bottom of the bath with Zoro.

"Fuck, Zoro." He breathed still shocked at the suddenness of Zoro's assault on him.

Zoro grins at him and licks his lips.

"That," Zoro says, "sounds like a very good idea."


	12. Chapter 12

Sanji is crumpled in a boneless heap against Zoro, his trousers still tangled around his calves and his head pressed against Zoro's collarbone as he struggles to get his breathing back to something approaching normal. Water is flowing down from the shower through his hair and along his face, it's running off of his lips in streams. Zoro's hands are stroking and teasing the skin on Sanji's back, gently easing him down from the intensity of his earlier orgasm. He shivers at the sensation as well as the fact that the water from the shower is starting to get a little on the chilly side.

He manages to coordinate his clumsy limbs enough to push up onto his knees and bat at the shower dial helplessly until the water shuts off, at which point he drops back down against Zoro, their chests pressed together and his head buried in the crook of Zoro's neck. He nuzzles into the smooth skin there and presses lazy kisses to Zoro's skin.

"Hmm, if I'd known that doing that would shut you up this much and make you so agreeable I'd have done that a long time ago." Zoro's voice rumbles happily against his ear.

"Don't make me ruin this moment by having to strangle you. I've been desperate for you to do that forever, but you kept changing your mind. You're a massive tease." Sanji growls against Zoro's neck even though he feels still too post-coital and glowy to be really angry.

"I'm not teasing now." Zoro points out and pushes his hips forward and Sanji jerks at the feeling of Zoro's erection pressed between them. He darts back though when Sanji tries to work his hand down to grab Zoro, his fingers just missing.

"You kind of are." He retorts, raising an eyebrow and making Zoro laugh loudly.

The swordsman responds to this accusation by biting Sanji hard on the shoulder and standing up and climbing out of the bath so suddenly as to unbalance Sanji enough to make him slip and fall flat on his back in the bath, still tangled in his own clothes. Zoro looks down at him as he struggles to untangle himself from his apparently deadly trousers and smirks.

"Yeah, you're a creature of beauty and grace Sanji." Zoro snorts and retreats out of Sanji's field of vision.

Sanji hurriedly separates himself from his clothes so that he can stand up and follow Zoro because he most definitely does not want Zoro disappearing on him after something like that. When he does manage to scramble out of the bath Zoro is drying his hair with a towel and has another towel wrapped around his waist, although that doesn't do much to disguise Zoro's still hard state.

Zoro stands up straight and tugs the towel off of his head and flashes Sanji a brilliant grin before throwing the towel at him. Sanji takes the hint and pulls his shirt off, leaving him completely naked, and then wrapping the towel around his own waist. As an afterthought he removes his clothes from the bath and throws them in the wash bin so as not to arouse the suspicions of anyone who comes in the bathroom after them, he's already worried that he was loud enough earlier without leaving any evidence behind. Zoro pauses at the door to the bathroom and gives him a wide eyed look.

"Wow Sanji, you didn't even _shut_ the door?" Zoro laughs, pulling the slightly ajar door fully open.

"What? I wasn't exactly expecting-" Sanji says, flustered by the thought that anyone could have walked by and seen or heard them, and as well as that they could have just wandered right in on them. To be honest he'd been far too distracted by the suddenness of finding Zoro naked that all other thoughts like 'hey, shutting and locking the door behind me might be a good idea' just melted away.

Zoro chuckles though, apparently finding the situation more amusing than mortifying and strides off through the open door. After a moment of flustered hesitation Sanji follows him quickly. The hallway is empty, thank god, and he follows Zoro into his room just in time for Zoro to snag his hand in the top of the towel around Sanji's waist and drag him in after.

Zoro shuts his bedroom door, presses Sanji against it and kisses him intently, as if he's putting as much effort into perfecting kissing Sanji as he does with his sword techniques. Sanji's ears register the click of the lock in the door and Zoro's hands come up to Sanji's jaw, cupping Sanji's face in his hands as the kiss turns tender. Sanji notices yet again that strange almost imperceptible change in the way Zoro kisses him now, as if there's some new feeling that he's trying to get across.

"Sanji." Zoro breathes against Sanji's lips and it's not a question, more of a statement but there's something sweet and uncertain in his tone. Sanji doesn't know what it is that Zoro sounds worried about, whether he's worried about Sanji changing his mind or something else. So he presses back against Zoro, trying to get as much contact between them as possible in the hopes of conveying his opinion that this is very much what he wants.

He is so _so_ sorely tempted to ask Zoro what brought about this sudden change, what's made him finally give in. But in the past opening his big mouth more than he really needs to has massively derailed things, like the whole Zoro-kun incident, so he's not going to risk saying a damn thing. He absolutely cannot bear to have this taken away, cannot bear to have Zoro unlock the door and say it's all a mistake and could Sanji leave now please? Instead he pulls at the towel at Zoro's waist and throws it across the room as he wriggles free of his own. He groans in pleasure as Zoro's cock comes free from the towel and presses against his leg, it's still very hard and the heat of it against Sanji's own skin makes his toes curl happily.

Zoro slides a hand against the small of Sanji's back and pulls him along as he steps backwards. Sanji follows willingly, chasing after the tantalising kisses that Zoro keeps giving him as he walks backwards. Zoro wraps his arms around Sanji's neck and falls backwards onto the bed. He catches himself awkwardly on his right hand, his left is caught underneath Zoro's back still from where Sanji was clinging onto him before Zoro pulled them both down.

Zoro wastes no time in exploring Sanji's body with both hands, his palms hot and wide as they slide up and down Sanji's ribcage and along the flat plane of his back. He tangles a leg around the back of Sanji's and rolls his hips up against Sanji's, not that Sanji had forgotten the swordsman's deliciously excited state.

He holds himself above Zoro while the swordsman insistently kisses his body and seems to try to touch him everywhere that he can reach. He stares down at Zoro who looks flushed with eyes dark and sparkling with excitement. His arms tremble as he contemplates what Zoro is offering, what he hopes that Zoro is offering at least. This certainly seems like it's more than Zoro just dragging him in here naked to kiss him, especially considering what Zoro just did to him moments ago. Ordinarily he wouldn't even dare to hope that Zoro was really offering himself up if Zoro wasn't the one leading them so insistently down that path.

He shakes his head to get the shock out of his system and presses Zoro hard into the mattress and is delighted at the quiet happy noise that comes from Zoro's throat. Curiously he catches one of Zoro's roaming hands and pins it by the wrist to the mattress. Zoro lets him, there's no doubt about that, their fighting styles differ greatly and Sanji has no shame in admitting that Zoro's upper body strength far surpasses his own, so Zoro is most definitely letting himself be held down. He presses the heel of his palm against Zoro's arm and feels that there's no tension in the muscle there, Zoro's not even tensed under his restraining touch. The fact that Zoro could escape but chooses not to, the fact that he's completely at ease held under Sanji causes a sudden surge of lust to hit him so hard that it almost feels like a kick to the gut. He's caught between wanting to release Zoro so that he can touch Zoro all over and find more places on Zoro's body that make him come undone and wanting to keep him held there because he can and Zoro is letting him.

And fuck if Sanji isn't hard again already despite it being barely five minutes since Zoro blew him in the shower. Apparently his body is completely on board with the concept that if he doesn't have sex with Zoro in the very immediate future then it potentially may never happen, especially if Zoro changes his mind like he's done in the past and as such his body is most definitely cooperating.

Zoro squirms underneath him, desperate for more contact and Sanji obligingly presses their bodies together. Zoro's body really is endlessly pleasing to every sense that Sanji has, he can feel the smooth alternate tensing and releasing of Zoro's muscles as the swordsman arches up against Sanji. He can feel the excited quick breaths from Zoro, both through his chest and as Zoro's breath rushes hot against Sanji's skin. He presses his free hand that isn't holding Zoro's wrist down to the marimo's chest and feels the breakneck fast thudding of Zoro's heart hammering against his ribs. He smiles feeling pleased and lets his fingers slide sideways to investigate the dark circle of Zoro's nipple. Zoro's face, flushed already though it is, darkens further and a whine that is a mixture of frustration and pleasure slides from his gorgeous lips.

As he does his best to coax more of those lovely whines and moans from Zoro he considers that he's never really been especially bothered about who is on top with his male lovers in the past. He's never been insecure or insistent about having it one way or the other and he's never felt that the preconceived ideas about people who liked it one way or the other were especially helpful either. He generally prefers to be on top if he has the choice though, mainly because Sanji feels that he is a better lover that way, if he's on the receiving end of things he tends to fall to pieces and lose himself to sensation too easily. He would rather ensure that his partner gets their mind blown instead, and in the end it isn't as if he is ever left unsatisfied is it? And god, does he ever want to blow Zoro's mind.

He's really hoping that Zoro won't have any problems with that idea, not that he'd mind in the slightest if Zoro decided to fuck him senseless instead. But he'd really rather be coherent enough to be able to watch all of Zoro's control slide away layer by layer as he drags Zoro through to completion. He wants to watch Zoro's face at that moment and he knows that if Zoro's on top that he won't be able to do that. He'll be too busy writhing underneath Zoro, getting his fingers onto every inch of Zoro that he can and swearing with every inventive combination of curses that he knows because he completely loses all self restraint if he's not on top. Not that he thinks Zoro will mind his nonsensical string of curses or even the nail marks that previous lovers have complained of.

He tells himself that it's just because he was distracted with the thought of being fucked by Zoro that Zoro manages to flip them both over so that Zoro is sitting on Sanji's thighs with his hands pressed on Sanji's narrow shoulders. He thinks that he catches Zoro muttering something along the lines of 'goddamn slow cook'. He's about to chew Zoro out for that hypocrisy when Zoro grabs both their dicks in his hand and rubs them together and simultaneously leaves Sanji with all the brain power of a particularly dumb rock.

Zoro's on top now and Sanji can already feel his control starting to slip away and his vocabulary starting to condense down into different variations of 'fuck' and 'Zoro'. His level of awareness too is shrinking down to just paying attention to the places that Zoro's touching him and little else. He's starting to think that he's perfectly happy with letting Zoro do whatever the hell he wants to him when Zoro's hand rubs against his dick, suddenly slippery with oil. And hey, when the hell did that happen? Furthermore had Zoro planned this enough to have supplies ready and in reach?

He forces his eyes open to see Zoro hovering above him, his face showing some caution. He realises that Zoro is almost asking for permission to have Sanji in him. He nods dumbly and before he can even do anything else Zoro slides down on him in one smooth movement. Sanji's whole body jerks at the suddenness of that, his own knees coming up and hitting Zoro in the back out of reflex. He's almost overwhelmed by the sudden heat of Zoro, and even though Sanji's always been aware that Zoro's base temperature was higher than his own it's an entirely different thing to suddenly be surrounded by that unbelievable heat and tightness.

"HOLY- God Zoro! You can't just _do_ that all at once!" He yelps, his fingers digging into Zoro's thighs, nails biting into the skin there. He can't believe that Zoro just did that in one without any easing into it or anything, surely that must hurt. Who fucking _does_ that?

"What? Can't take it cook?" Zoro smirks down at him challengingly and then Sanji remembers that, oh yeah, Zoro does that. Zoro's a fucking crazy person who sees no point in avoiding pain at the best of times so really, why would sex be any different? Dumb masochistic marimo.

He snaps his hips up anyway and gives Zoro a pointed look so that Zoro's under no illusions as to Sanji's stamina and self-control. He moves again, slower now because he doesn't actually _want_ to hurt Zoro. His hands search out Zoro's hips and find their way to the place where Zoro's thighs meet his crotch and he runs his thumb along the line of it, searching for the nerves there. He knows that he's sensitive there and that if pressed just so when he's having sex can make him start to lose it, he wonders if that's just him or whether Zoro has that too.

Zoro's cries out suddenly, his back arching sharply. Sanji grins deviously at that, so that's not just him then. He ruthlessly exploits this new discovery, causing Zoro to yelp and press down helplessly against Sanji.

Either Zoro has had enough of Sanji toying with his nerves or he really appreciated it, Sanji can't tell. Zoro surges forward and kisses Sanji roughly in what is really more of a fierce press of mouths that clacks their teeth together than it is a kiss. Zoro's picked up speed now and his breath is coming faster against Sanji's skin. It occurs to Sanji suddenly that somehow despite being on the receiving end here Zoro's doing all the goddamn work! He can't have that, he wanted to be the one to make Zoro fall apart, not the other way around!

Sanji quickly exploits the fact that when it comes to leg strength between the two of them he wins hands down and digs his heel into Zoro's mattress to flip them over. He manages to stay inside Zoro still as they roll over, as they land though Zoro yells suddenly and for a moment Sanji thinks he's hurt Zoro accidentally.

"Fuck, do that again." Zoro gasps, arching his hips against Sanji.

Sanji grins at that and because he's not one to deny Zoro anything when asked in _that_ tone of voice he moves forward with a twist of his hips and is happily rewarded with more gasps and Zoro's hands fisting tightly in the sheets below them. Sanji twists his hips again as he slides into Zoro causing the swordsman's head to fall back in bliss and exposing the delicious line of his throat. Sanji bites back the temptation to lean down and mark Zoro's skin there, there'll be time for that later.

Instead he sets himself to mapping Zoro's body with the hand that's not supporting his weight. Zoro's skin is burning hot and slicked with sweat, he lets loose every temptation he's ever had to touch Zoro's skin when he's been training. He can't help but feel pleased that this time he's the reason that Zoro is flushed, hot and out of breath.

He pushes a little harder into Zoro but instead of flinching or complaining Zoro meets him with every thrust, his body pushing back to meet Sanji at every opportunity. And if the repetition of his name from Zoro's lips over and over like a prayer is anything to go by Zoro is more than enjoying Sanji kicking it up a notch.

He thinks that Zoro is close now, his breathing is hard and nonsensical pleas are falling from Zoro's mouth desperately. Half-heard utterances of 'Sanji', 'please' and 'more', as Zoro whines curses and gasps against Sanji's skin.

Sanji isn't sure he's ever seen Zoro look more beautiful, and he's never really associated Zoro and the word beautiful at all until now. He'd always thought Zoro was attractive, handsome and strong but beautiful? No, that was a word for pretty ladies with thick lashes and ample bosoms. But suddenly… suddenly Zoro underneath him with mussed still-damp hair and incredibly flushed cheeks, his body arching under Sanji, rising and falling as he starts to come apart… suddenly he's beautiful as well. He doesn't dare stop moving but he stares down at Zoro as much as he can. There's no emotional barriers up now, Zoro's not holding him at arms length, there's no half-truths or ego here. This is just… just Zoro and it's wonderful.

Zoro's breath hitches and his eyes snap open, staring right at Sanji. They're all hazy and unfocused and Zoro looks like he's fighting hard not to screw them shut again.

"Ah! Sanji!" Zoro gasps out. It's only when Zoro suddenly tightens around him and he feels splashes of heat pool between them that Sanji realizes that Zoro just came with his name on his lips. And Zoro's _still_ looking up at him, and the intensity of the eye contact distracts Sanji so much that Sanji's own orgasm slams into him unexpectedly. He hadn't thought he was that close but something about the sudden spike of intimacy of Zoro's gaze and his name gasped like that hits him harder than he'd believed possible.

"Oh fuck!" He shouts, losing his balance more than a little and falling to his elbow by Zoro's head. And, okay yeah, not perhaps the most romantic or eloquent thing he's ever said when coming but he didn't exactly expect that one or have much time or brainpower with which to prepare.

He pulls apart from Zoro and falls bonelessly to the side, landing on the bed next to the still panting Zoro. He throws his arm across Zoro and pulls the swordsman closer.

"Fuck, we've wasted forever arguing. Clearly we should have settled every argument we've ever had with sex." Sanji gasps against Zoro's shoulder.

"But… then we'd never stop arguing." Zoro frowns slowly.

"Sounds good to me." Sanji purrs against Zoro's skin and is pleased with the deep laugh that earns him.

"I'm gonna pass out now." Zoro groans, sounding thoroughly fucked out and happy.

"Oh good, I'd feel bad about falling asleep for a year otherwise." Sanji agrees with a yawn. Zoro's already snoring softly at his side and he drifts into sleep feeling happy and content.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Aww thanks for all the love guys. I'm so happy that you liked the last chapter, it was the first lemon that i'd ever written so i was super nervous about it! It really makes my day hearing what you think so please do review and tell me! 3

Sanji wakes in slow increments and smiles to himself as he remembers last night, his muscles still feel all relaxed from last night and Zoro's touch. He can feel Zoro's warmth next to him and he reaches out with a hand for him. He opens his eyes in surprise when his hand brushes clothing instead of the bare skin of Zoro's back that he expected. Zoro's sitting on the bed with his back to him and fully dressed.

"Shit, what time is it? Did I oversleep?" Sanji groans and yawns so widely that his jaw clicks a little. Zoro startles a little at the sound of Sanji's voice and turns so he's facing side on to Sanji.

"Ah, no. It's still early, almost dawn I think. I just… woke up is all." Zoro answers quietly, not looking at Sanji.

Sanji calms down a little at that, it's not as if he especially needs to keep his relationship with Zoro a secret, though it might be wise to do so, but making breakfast several hours late is a bad idea and not especially subtle either. But if he's got plenty of time to cook then he sees no reason to vacate Zoro's bed.

"So get back into bed, I can think of things to do if you can't sleep." He urges with a sly smile, tugging playfully at Zoro's arm.

"A-about that… I can't- I mean, I shouldn't have…" Zoro struggles with a frown. Sanji pauses and looks up at Zoro, he's no idea what Zoro's talking about, the man can't seem to get through enough of a sentence to enlighten him either.

"Last night," Zoro starts again, scrubbing his face wearily with a hand, "it shouldn't have happened."

Sanji jolts bolt upright in bed at that, he's more awake than several pots of coffee and an early morning cigarette could ever make him. Having panic and adrenaline flowing through his veins is incredibly effective.

"What? Did I do something wrong?" He asks worriedly.

"Was I too rough? I didn't mean to be, but you seemed to enjoy it so- If I did something wrong just tell me what it was and I swear I'll never do it again!" He babbles quickly, horrified at the thought that he somehow hurt Zoro, that he did something wrong.

Zoro's hand catches his cheek to still him and Sanji realises that he's actually shaking a little.

"You didn't do anything wrong, honest. You were…" Zoro trails off with a distant and, Sanji suspects unconscious, smile quirking the edge of his mouth.

"But that's not the point. Last night can't happen again." Zoro states definitively.

Sanji stares at Zoro, he's just sitting there looking anxious and a touch worried. He doesn't... He doesn't understand what's going on here, if he didn't do something wrong then why is Zoro saying that this was a mistake? Why is he saying that this can't happen again?

"Then what the fuck is the problem?" he yells as anger suddenly fills him. He can't believe that Zoro is doing this to him again, that he's still jerking him around! He'd thought that they were past all that after last night. Zoro actually flinches a little at Sanji's yell, and some sadistic part of Sanji is pleased about that. Zoro should be scared! A lesser man than he would have strangled Zoro by now for all that he's put Sanji through!

"I'm sorry! I just- I can't go through this all over again!" Zoro says hastily, holding his hands up as if to pacify Sanji.

"What do you mean by 'this' Zoro? The sex? Because you didn't seem to be complaining last night, hell, you were the one who started it!" Sanji snaps furiously.

"That's not what I meant!" Zoro shouts back, leaping off of the bed.

"You can't do this to me!" Sanji yells, but even he can hear the pleading note in his voice.

"Watch me!" Zoro shoots back and storms out, slamming the door to his room shut after him.

Sanji sits sullenly in the now very silent room, Zoro's sheets pooled around his naked waist. He swears and scratches a hand through his hair. He'd thought he had Zoro, thought that he had him for real, that Zoro would actually let him in and trust him for once. It was ridiculous how willing Zoro was to trust his life to the hands of people they barely knew but he still wouldn't trust his heart to his own nakama, to him who'd done everything in his power to prove himself worthy of that trust. It wasn't fucking fair. And it was one thing to be denied but entirely another to have Zoro allow him to believe that he'd given in and then change his goddamn mind afterwards.

Fuck. He needed to shower and calm down, there was no way he was going to be able to think straight with the smell of Zoro's skin and their lovemaking still clinging to him.

After his shower, which wasn't nearly as restful as he'd have liked with memories of last night still sticking to him, he slipped into the men's bunkroom in just a towel. All of the others were still asleep, restfully oblivious to his absence and the events of this morning.

Sanji changed into his suit this time, he still felt a little uncomfortable and overheated from the lingering remains of his burns but there was a certain appeal in being covered in his protective suit, a psychological façade of normality would certainly be welcome now.

He slunk off to the kitchen and was unable to spot Zoro anywhere on the way there, which was probably for the best. He shut the door behind him and tried to breathe in the calming atmosphere of his beloved kitchen. He laid his hands on the work surface and tried to think.

Zoro had hurt him badly, he felt… used almost. He'd never wanted just one night, he'd never wanted Zoro to freak out in the morning and run off, that's why he'd been so fucking patient with Zoro. And since Zoro had been so clear on him not being the kind of man who has one night stands Sanji had assumed that if Zoro did have sex with him then it'd be for keeps. He hadn't expected Zoro to brush him off the next morning with assurances that it'd never happen again.

He slams his hand against the counter angrily and his palm stings from the impact, still sore from the healing burn. He scowls at his hand, he would never have taken Zoro on that cursed date if he'd thought that Zoro was just going to throw him aside like this. Fuck, maybe he should have just left the bastard in that boiling pot and saved himself instead!

He lets out a slow shaky breath. He doesn't mean that. He'd never leave Zoro behind, regardless of how much of a bastard he's being right now. Zoro is nakama after all, even if everything else had gone to shit they were still nakama. That's why this hurts so much, Zoro had lied to him. He'd said that he didn't do one night stands and then promptly done just that to him. Even Sanji understood that you didn't just fuck nakama without any feeling behind it, one night stands were for strangers in bars, not nakama. Did Sanji really mean that little to Zoro?

A painful ache settles in his chest. He'd wanted so much more than just one night. He respected Zoro and had thought the feeling mutual. And he'd sworn that in Zoro last night he'd seen and felt the hints of so much more and he'd wanted it, wanted without really understanding but with an intensity that had surprised even him. And to have it all snatched away from him hurt so badly. He rubs his chest but even he knows that it's no mere muscle ache that he feels, nor anything so simple as heartburn, it hurts consistently from the inside out the way that only mental pain can.

His lip trembles and he bites hard on it to stop the movement and swallows the sudden lump in his throat. He just doesn't _understand_ goddamnit. It must have been something that he did, why else would Zoro have swung so rapidly from one extreme to the other? But what had he done so wrong that prompted Zoro to make himself perfectly clear that he wouldn't so much as touch Sanji again if you paid him? Why, why, WHY?

"Hey Sanji." Franky's voice greets, still rough from sleep. Sanji glances over, he didn't even hear the shipwright approaching at all. Sanji keeps his back to him and grunts non-commitally, he really doesn't want to see anyone right now. Well, anyone except Zoro and he's not really sure about that one either.

"Hey, did you stay in here all night? I saw you go off to fight with Zoro but I never heard you come to bed, and I got up in the middle of the night to piss and your bed was still empty. Was your fight so bad that you couldn't sleep or something?" Franky asks with a touch of concern to his voice.

Sanji's hands tighten on the counter in front of him. A fight? He wishes. No, he'd spent all night curled up to Zoro blissfully asleep and happy, unaware of the pain that was waiting for him when he awoke. Perhaps he would have been better off if he'd just stayed up in the kitchen all night and fumed about Zoro instead of what actually happened.

"Sanji?" Franky asks, worried. The shipwright appears in the corner of his vision and he realizes with a start that his vision is blurry. He startles and the movement jolts an unshed tear into escaping, he feels it rush hot and wet down his cheek. He's crying now? God damnit!

"Sanji, what's wrong?" The shipwright presses. Franky's face is concerned and he reaches out to lay an overly large hand on Sanji's shoulder, jolting more tears to escape.

Franky apparently thinks that the appropriate thing to do here is to gather Sanji up into an almost bone-crushing hug and thump Sanji on the back in what the shipwright clearly thinks is a comforting rather than painful way.

"What did Zoro say to you to upset you so bad?" Franky asks, an innocent enough question really. But something inside Sanji just breaks and before he realizes it he's got his hands fisted in Franky's hideous Hawaiian shirt and is bawling openly like a child. Franky's still trying to ask him questions but he can't hear him well enough to answer, and any answer he gave now would be so garbled by tears that the shipwright wouldn't understand him anyway.

And fuck, how would he even explain this anyway? _'I jumped Zoro on the beach because I wanted him but lately it's turned into something more, then after that he slept with me and shut me down right after.' _He couldn't say that, and even that didn't begin to explain everything that he felt, didn't begin to explain away the persistent pain in his chest. He couldn't explain it because he didn't even understand it himself.

"Right, that's it. I'm gonna go find Zoro and-" Franky growls, stepping back and balling his fists at his sides as he turns off to head out of the room.

"No!" Sanji yelps, catching the back of Franky's shirt.

"Please don't. It's- it's my problem. Just- please?" Sanji begs. Franky pauses and tilts his head as if weighing up his options. Sanji sniffs and rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm, crying like this isn't like him and he hates it. He feels all hollowed out and weak, it's pathetic.

"Will you tell me what happened at least?" Franky asks gently.

"No, it's fine. I'm fine. I couldn't even explain it right if I wanted to anyway." Sanji laughs darkly.

"Well… if you change your mind." Franky says softly. Sanji nods gratefully, the offer is kind and he appreciates it even if he's not going to take Franky up on it any time soon. The blue haired man sighs and leaves the room, shooting Sanji one last worried look on his way out.

Sanji mechanically starts on breakfast, something simple that he could cook in his sleep. He'd spent enough time on early morning shifts at the baratie to be able to have enough recipes that he could make half awake because he made them half awake. People file in and out of breakfast almost without Sanji noticing, when Zoro arrives he leaves under the pretense of going outside to smoke. The nicotine calms his nerves a little and makes him forget every so slightly the way Zoro's mouth had opened for a second as if to say something and then shut right after.

He smokes three cigarettes one right after the other and ignores the worried glances that Franky shoots him when everyone files out of breakfast. Even the compliments of his food that Nami calls to him as she walks out wash over him. There's only one thing running through his head, an endless verse and chorus of 'Zoro Zoro Zoro'.

He slides numbly back into the kitchen and sets about clearing up the wreckage of breakfast. It actually takes him about thirty seconds to realize that Robin is still at the counter sipping a cup of coffee and watching him carefully.

"Oh, sorry Robin-chan, I didn't see you there. How rude of me. Would you like anything else to eat or drink?" He asks, because no matter what is going on in his life he can't forget all of his manners.

"I'm fine thank you Sanji. There was something I wanted to speak to you about though." Robin smiles gently.

"Oh?" Sanji asks, banishing the worry that Franky said anything to her. He doubts that Franky would do that to him at all, and even if he did he had nothing much to tell her.

"I wanted to talk to you about Zoro, I tried to catch you yesterday but you were in a bit of a hurry." Robin says and sips her coffee gently.

Sanji forces his muscles to relax. What could she know really? The mention of Zoro's name shouldn't tense him up so much or send him into fits of paranoia.

"Oh?" He asks with forced nonchalance and places the dishes in the sink gently.

"I'll be blunt. I know what happened between the two of you on the beach. Zoro told me, or rather, I tricked him into telling me. A little mean spirited perhaps but I feel I was right to pry." Robin states and puts her coffee cup down with a clink.

He freezes and stares unseeingly at the sink. Does Robin really know everything? Why would Zoro tell her all of that even if she did trick him into giving away a little information? And how long exactly has she known? And how much has she been aware of since the beach? He needs to play his cards close to his chest if he wants to find out what Robin knows without telling her anything new.

"What of it?" He asks stiffly and turns the tap on, more as a distraction than an actual attempt at washing dishes.

"I know that he's been stupid. He knows rationally that the two of you forming any relationship beyond nakama would end only in disaster, a sentiment that I agree with, but as always it seems like you have the ability to get under his skin like no one else. I know he's been unable to stick to that resolve. So I'm here to ask a request of you." Robin says in a voice that suggests that she's discussing something like the weather rather than the emotional train wreck that is him and Zoro.

"What?" He asks more as a statement of confusion than asking Robin what her request is, but Robin continues anyway.

"I would request that you don't sleep with Zoro. He's already falling in love with you, and regrettably I suspect that Zoro is the type that cannot separate sex and love. If you were to sleep with him it would undoubtedly destroy your relationship as nakama sooner or later." Robin says seriously.

Sanji feels rage shoot through his veins. How much has Zoro been sharing with Robin? It occurs to him that the half heard conversation between Robin and Zoro must have been about him, her reminding him not to give in and Zoro agreeing. And how dare they talk about him like that behind his back? And how dare Robin try to decide what he should and shouldn't do?

"Well, you're too late. And it wasn't Zoro that got his heart broken, it was me. Perhaps thanks to your advice even." Sanji snaps turning around to glare at Robin fiercely all pretense at manners long forgotten. Robin looks sad for a moment and then sighs.

"I see. Well, I'm too late then." She says simply and stands up.

"Zoro doesn't love me anyway! And even if he did would it be such a bad thing?" Sanji shout at her, furious at her arrogance for the first time in his life.

Robin looks sidelong at him, and her gaze is cold and hard, as it was when they first met her. After a moment it softens into a condescending kind of sympathy.

"Sanji, for someone so well traveled you are awfully naïve in some areas. You claim to love people but you love no one, not beyond the bond of nakama at least. You don't even understand love." Robin says flatly.

"What's not to understand? Love is a wonderful thing, how would it be bad if Zoro did love me?" Sanji points out irritably, he doesn't like Robin talking down at him like he's a child.

"That just proves that you understand nothing of love. Do you not realize that even if your childish definition of love were true, which it isn't, that it would be terrible for Zoro to love you and not have you love him back? Because even you're not deluded enough to believe that you love him are you?" Robin points out in an icy tone.

Sanji flinches back at that. It's true that he doesn't love Zoro, he feels many things for the marimo but he's not in love with him. He knew what love was and you knew when you were in love, the person you loved became your entire world, you felt love like a thunderbolt to the heart. If there was doubt then you weren't in love, and he'd not had any shocking moments of clarity or a surge of affection for Zoro. He didn't love Zoro.

"I- no. But, these things take time! You can't say that I wouldn't get there!" Sanji points out hurriedly. And anyway, he cared plenty for Zoro without loving him so it wasn't as if he was using Zoro.

"I hope that you don't. Love is not a good thing, love is not wonderful. Love is a particular kind of madness. You become insane, you'd give anything for that person, things that you shouldn't give, things that if you were sane you'd never even consider. That person has absolute power over you because you'd do anything they asked. That person has your heart in their hands and they can crush it with ease, and sooner or later they always do. Love always ends in failure or disaster in the end. If Zoro really has fallen for you then he's already doomed. You will destroy him sooner or later, deliberately or accidentally, it doesn't matter. You don't even understand the power he's given you over him." Robin says darkly.

"You're wrong! Love isn't like that, love makes people happy! And if I'm the one with all the power here how come Zoro hurt me instead? How come he said that none of this could ever happen again, that it was all over?" Sanji yells angrily revealing more than he perhaps should.

Robin smiles slightly at that, though her smile still has a pitying shade to it.

"So he still has a modicum of sanity left. He'll break his own heart instead of you doing it. An elegant solution, even if it does have a high chance of failure." Robin muses thoughtfully.

"Never mind then, thank you for the coffee Sanji-san." Robin nods and turns to leave. Sanji yells and tries to stop her but Robin continues on, ignoring him heedless of his protests.

The door clicks shut behind her and Sanji slams his foot into a cabinet in frustration. Robin is wrong, she has to be. Even if Zoro is in love with him then surely Zoro too doesn't share such a bleak view on what love is does he? And he's never seen any proof of Zoro's feelings changing has he? Surely he would have noticed something like that.

His hand flies to his lips of his own accord as he remembers the strange change in the quality of Zoro's kisses. Could the new emotion Zoro was expressing really have been love? As if summoned by his thoughts Zoro cautiously sticks his head around the door, Sanji wonders bitterly whether _Robin_ sent him. Zoro eyes him warily, as if he expects pots and pans to come flying his way, though Sanji would never mistreat his tools that way, even if he does want to cave Zoro's skull in right now.

Zoro coughs awkwardly and leans against the door. Sanji just looks at him, he's not going to say a damn thing until Zoro speaks, and if that means that Zoro has to face an awkward silence then so be it. After what Zoro's done to him the _least_ he should feel is awkward.

"So. I wasn't very uh- you know. I mean… I didn't really manage to say- I'm not very-" Zoro tries hesitantly.

"Eloquent?" Sanji suggest, because whilst he wants Zoro to suffer he's not got all fucking _day_.

"Yeah, that." Zoro nods.

Sanji shoots the silent swordsman a look that clearly suggests that he get on with it or else.

"I'm sorry. About, you know, everything." Zoro mutters rubbing the back of his neck. Sanji rolls his eyes. Honestly. Apparently he's going to have to be the one to do all the work here if he wants to get anywhere with this conversation.

"How helpful. How about I start? I thought Roronoa Zoro didn't do one night stands." Sanji says, dragging out the syllables of Zoro's name to make it sound as pretentious as possible. Zoro looks a little startled at that and frowns.

"I don't." Zoro answers quietly, his hand absently resting on the hilt of his white sword; a move that Sanji recognizes as one Zoro does when uncomfortable.

"So you've changed your mind then? About us?" Sanji asks and fails to crush the little flame of hope that suddenly bursts alight again in his chest.

"No." Zoro says firmly crushing it again.

"Those can't both be true. Either we're together or I was just a quick fuck." He says maliciously and glares at Zoro who goes wide eyed. Zoro steps closer to him, hands reaching out instinctively even though his feet have more sense than to carry him in reach of Sanji's legs.

"No! You weren't just- I'd never!" Zoro insists earnestly with wide worried eyes. And Sanji sees it for a second, a flash of something deep in those dark eyes. But it's gone almost as soon as it came, Zoro clearly well practiced at controlling his deeper feelings.

He stares at Zoro with his stupid green hair that he knows now feels silky to the touch when damp, with his stupid body and hard muscles that Sanji knows what they feel like when they tense and shudder under his touch. He might not be in love with Zoro but he knows an addiction when he sees it, and Zoro has him hooked. He'd be willing to forget this stupid fight and Zoro's hurtful rejection if he thought it'd mean that Zoro would let him close again, let him touch and taste his skin and curl against him again. But it won't.

He tears his eyes away and drums his fingers thoughtfully on the counter's surface. It's polished and he can see his own reflection, a mirror Sanji looking just as caught by his feelings as he feels. He might as well go for broke.

"Robin says that you're in love with me." He says carefully keeping his voice balanced. He finds himself shocked by a tiny voice inside him begging, no, not begging, _screaming_ for it to be true. He doesn't know why he'd want that, Robin is right, it'd be cruel to want Zoro to love him when he doesn't love in return. But… oh he doesn't know, maybe it's a vanity thing; if Zoro loves him then that means that he couldn't have just been some quick fuck, discarded after Zoro got what he wanted.

He looks up but Zoro's face is already in a tight neutral expression, giving nothing away other than the fact that what he feels is absolutely not what's on his face.

"So what?" Zoro says slowly. An admission? Perhaps, but maybe just a comment on Robin. God damnit, why is Zoro so vague?

"If- if you did, then why are you doing this to me? Why won't you let me be with you?" Sanji asks, the swell of pain in his chest hurting almost unbearably now.

Zoro turns so that he's facing Sanji properly, the only thing separating them is the kitchen counter. Zoro looks him straight in the eye, his dark eyes unreadable.

"Because you don't love me." Zoro says simply. Sanji opens his mouth, it'd be so easy to deny that, to profess his love. But… he can't, not to Zoro, not to someone where it really means something.

"I could, I could if you gave me time." Sanji says weakly.

"I can't do that." Zoro answers quietly.

Sanji just stares at Zoro, he's within arm's reach but for how terrible the distance between them feels Zoro might as well be back in East Blue.

"You're not going to change your mind are you?" He asks with a weak quiver in his voice.

"No." Zoro says a little sadly and leaves.

Sanji bites his lip and grits his teeth now that he's alone again. Everything Zoro has said in the past has had that double tone of yes and no in it, everything has been negotiable, but this… Zoro says no and means no. There's nothing he can do to dissuade Zoro from this path, even if it leaves him with this unbearable ache in his chest. He's lost.


	14. Chapter 14

Sanji spends the next two weeks at sea feeling numb for the most part. During the day he's fine, the routine of the day never left him much time for thinking anyway. Get up, cook breakfast, feed the crew, clean up the mess that they left, start lunch, feed the crew, clean up mess, cook dinner, feed crew, clean up mess, fall asleep, repeat. He's even been deliberately cooking things that take an incredibly long time to cook and cooking several different things at once, all to keep busy. And so far it's working, during the day he's keeping it together.

But at night… Well. At night he's either plagued by insomnia, staring up at the ceiling and wishing that he were down the hallway in Zoro's bed, curled up against Zoro's warm body and listening to the swordsman's soft breathing. And if he's not plagued by insomnia he's being haunted by dreams. He either has dreams that replay that night, his hands on Zoro, skin on skin and hearing the wonderful sounds that fall from Zoro's lips, dreams that startle him awake and then leave him humming with a need to have Zoro's hands on him. It's either that or the nightmares, it happens whenever he's stressed but it never makes opening his eyes and seeing that fucking rock and the endless ocean around him any easier. Either way whenever he does dream he's up again before the night is through and in the kitchen either chain-smoking to distract himself or eating to drive away starvation that's not really there.

He's a fucking mess and he knows it. Zoro's not actively avoiding him, but their interaction is simple and clear, obviously so that there can be no misunderstanding. Perhaps it's a kindness on Zoro's part, leaving no room for Sanji to get the wrong idea and get his hopes up but still… it feels cold. They don't argue anymore, don't fight, because both are activities that got them both passionate in one way or the other before and neither of them can risk an overflow from the kind of passion that they shared that night. In all honesty Sanji would admit that Zoro taking a swing at him would most likely end up with him throwing himself on Zoro, wrapping his legs around his waist and begging Zoro to change his mind. Fuck, even the thought of fighting Zoro again gets him hard.

It's been two weeks since his night with Zoro. When he looks in the mirror there's not even a hint of the bruise that blossomed around his eye when Zoro punched him in the face on the beach. The bite on his hip has completely disappeared too. He'd even found scratches on his sides from Zoro's hands the day after Zoro shut him down completely, but they too faded quickly. When he looks at himself there's not a shred of evidence that Zoro ever even touched him at all. But the horrible ache in his chest reminds him should he ever forget.

Still, he feels hollowed out and he can't wait until they get to the next island. He needs some room to breathe away from Zoro and maybe to go to a bar on his own and flirt with someone who doesn't matter, maybe even screw them and never see them again, just so he feels a little more balanced. He doesn't know if he could go through with it or not though.

He climbs up to the crow's nest, half asleep with the tingle of Zoro's ghostly fingers still clinging to him from his dream. He's got into the habit of relieving people from their watch when he can't sleep now. He'd assumed since all the guys were asleep that it would be one of the ladies on watch, but instead he opens the hatch to see that it's Zoro looking out over the ocean. His skin is almost completely white and washed out under the half-light of the moon above, his hair just looks dark as the low light level erases all colour from the world. But he knows the colour of Zoro's strange hair in his very bones, knows what it feels like through his fingers, what it smells like up close and how it feels clinging to his skin when wet. He knows Zoro and his brain is always too helpful at reminding him of all those details whenever he sees him.

"Oh." Zoro says when he sees him, then a frown, "You're not on watch are you? I thought I had it 'til dawn."

Sanji pauses, still half in and half out of the hatch. He could lie and leave quickly, claiming that it was his mistake.

"I couldn't sleep." His mouth answers before the rest of him can stop it. He groans inside, he really didn't need to tell Zoro that. The marimo probably thinks he's been pathetic enough pining the way he has without telling Zoro that he can't sleep anymore without him.

"Oh. Ok." Zoro shrugs and turns his gaze back to the window.

Feeling like he's already damned he pulls himself fully in the crow's nest room and kicks the hatch shut behind him. He collapses on the bench seat to the side and lights a cigarette with movements so practiced he could do it asleep. He sees but doesn't meet the sidelong glance that Zoro gives him, it's hot and wanting, Sanji can feel it running over his skin like liquid silk. He ignores it and plays with his lighter, perhaps this would be easier if he wasn't constantly reminded that Zoro still wants him too, even if it was Zoro himself who put an end to everything. He wants Zoro to snap and touch him again, but he can see pretty clearly that it's not going to happen. Not again, not ever.

"Nami says we'll be at the next island before lunch." Zoro says, forcing conversation.

"Yeah." He agrees in a puff of smoke. He can hardly wait, he needs a chance to be away from Zoro and get his head right. He can't keep living like this, the sleep deprivation will kill him for one thing.

He shuts his eyes, but it doesn't help. He can still feel Zoro there, like a compass feels north he can always feel him nearby but never close enough.

"I need to be somewhere else." He says, without adding 'somewhere you're not'. And leaves quickly, heading down the steps and locking himself in his kitchen.

He bakes bread, enjoying the release that comes from slamming his hands roughly into the dough over and over again to drain away his anger, both at Zoro and at himself. After that he carefully prepares sliced tropical fruit, sets the coffee brewing and starts cooking bacon and eggs the way the crew likes it. As always his timing is perfect, the crew shamble in half awake just as the plates are hitting the table full with tasty food.

Breakfast is filled with noisy and excited chatter about what the next island is going to be like, but everyone is looking forward to it. Apparently the tension that's been running between him and Zoro has been making the rest of the crew inexplicably antsy and everyone is anticipating the chance to get off of the suddenly claustrophobic ship to stretch their limbs and relax. He smiles to himself, his crew's happiness is catching. He doesn't know what he'd do without his nakama, they're all such wonderful people, however bizarre and annoying they can be at times they're closer than family and even in the darkest of times they always make him feel safe and happy.

He's just putting away the dishes when he feels the ship stop, that sudden halt in motion that he hardly ever notices at sea always jars him a little. Still, he grew up on a ship and doesn't so much as let a plate slide. He makes his way out of the kitchen, locking it securely behind him. At the side of the ship the rest of the crew are gathered expectantly, Nami glances up at Sanji as he arrives and he desperately hopes that he's not going to be the one chosen to stay on watch. As much as he loves the Sunny, and he does love it dearly, it's his home, he can't stand to spend another goddamn minute on this ship.

"You know what? Let's just lock up completely, I think we could all do with a break. Let's all go have one drink together and then stretch our legs properly, sound good?" Nami asks in her infinite wisdom, Sanji feels a surge of affection for the wonderful woman.

They all walk into town together, Sanji doesn't especially want to have a drink with Zoro but he supposes one can't hurt. After all he can split off on his own afterwards and get some space to think. The others are talking happily between themselves, Zoro is listening patiently to a story of Usopp's as they walk along. Despite all the tension that's been going between he and Zoro in the past few weeks he can't help but feel some of that tension melt out of him as he walks with his nakama. The familiar sounds of talking and the routine of exploring a new island make him feel comforted somehow, like everything is going to be alright after all.

The bar appears in the distance, the hanging sign of a frothing bear mug over the door beckoning them closer. He follows behind Zoro as they go through the door, he doesn't dislike Zoro at all even after everything, but he'd really rather be somewhere else that's-

Sanji's thoughts are cut short as he abruptly walks into Zoro's back, Zoro's suddenly stopped for no apparent reason.

"Hey! Watch it marimo!" Sanji grouses, jabbing Zoro in the back to prompt him to keep walking. But Zoro stays frozen, not even giving any indication that he felt Sanji's jab.

Sanji frowns, usually Zoro would at least say something, or move if he didn't want to keep walking but instead he's completely still. He notices that the muscles in the back of Zoro's neck are standing up in sharp relief and the line of his shoulders are taut and harsh.

"Zoro?" Sanji asks, putting a hand carefully on the small of Zoro's back and sidestepping a little to try to see Zoro's face.

Zoro looks… terrified. His eyes are wide and all the blood seems to have gone from his face leaving him pale, Sanji can even feel a slight tremor running through the swordsman's back. He's frozen stock still staring straight ahead and every muscle looks like it's wound so tight that they might snap at any moment.

Seeing Zoro scared fills Sanji with terror. He's seen Zoro fight hundreds of people, he's seen him fight marines, crazy pirates and fucking warlords and never seen Zoro look scared. Zoro is one of those people that feels fear but almost in an abstract way, like he's aware of it, processed the emotion and then ignored it. He'd seen Zoro open his arms to a killing blow from Mihawk without a shred of fear on his face, his seen him face down hoards of assassins and psychos and he's always looked cool and in control. But now… now he looks chilled to the bone with fear.

Sanji glances around the room but doesn't see anyone or anything especially dangerous looking like a warlord or a gaping portal to hell or anything. He looks back at Zoro who looks still as terrified as before.

"Zoro!" He prompts again trying to snap Zoro back to the real world but Zoro doesn't even look at him, Zoro shakily takes a step backwards and Sanji can hear his panicked uneven breathing. His lip shakes and Sanji can see his mouth struggling to form around a silent word in fear. The others have started noticing Zoro's strange behaviour now, a few feet ahead Luffy looks at Zoro with concern and confusion on his face, ahead of Sanji Usopp turns, having noticed that the audience for his story has stopped paying attention. The rest of his nakama too are slowly turning and looking at the frozen Zoro with worry etched into their faces.

"Zoro?" Usopp asks, a little louder than Sanji and leans around him to see Zoro. Zoro stays frozen, as if he's not even heard either of them, like he's not even aware that they're there at all.

"Zoro?" A stranger's voice asks quizzically. Sanji turns to see a tall man in a black coat leaning back in his chair to see around Sanji to get a glance at Zoro.

"Hey, it _is_ you!" The man grins, standing up slowly. Sanji feels rather than sees the pronounced flinch that runs through Zoro at that.

"_No."_ Zoro says in a barely audible but strangled sounding whisper.

Sanji stares at the man who's grinning openly now, his smile feels malevolent somehow. Sanji sizes him up quickly, he can't see that the man is armed though it is possible that he could have smaller weapons concealed in the long black coat that he's wearing, but it seems unlikely that he's a swordsman like Zoro. The man doesn't look especially intimidating, not in comparison to some of the psycho's that they've fought so far. He's not especially bulky either, but clearly in good shape. Nothing about him screams danger in the way that it should to get the kind of reaction he's getting from Zoro.

He's tall, perhaps three inches above Sanji himself. His hair is long, about shoulder length and doesn't look especially well cared for. His skin tone and his dark hair remind Sanji a little of Crocodile, albeit without the aura of power that radiated from the one handed warlord. The man holds himself with the kind of confident self-assured swagger that pirates tend to have, and if his coat and hat are anything to go by it's likely that he's a captain. The way the other pirates in the bar are all looking at him certainly adds weight to that theory, but how does he know Zoro? He knows that Zoro was never a pirate before he met Luffy so they're unlikely to be old shipmates. And why on earth is Zoro so scared of him? It just doesn't make sense.

"Well, what a surprise to see you here. I guess you got out of that prison cell alright after all." The man chuckles darkly, his black eyes creasing with mirth.

This seems to snap something in Zoro, his arm suddenly flies and in a blink Zoro's white sword is hovering half an inch from the man's throat.

"You BASTARD! I'll fucking kill you!" Zoro snarls furiously.

The bar as a whole moves, pirates left and right start reaching for their weapons and a few already have guns trained on Zoro. Similarly Usopp already has his hand in his bag no doubt reaching for his smaller slingshot, Robin has her arms folded ready to snap some necks, Nami's hand is twitching for the strap on her leg where her clima-tact lies and Luffy is cracking his knuckles. Franky is discreetly readying his arm-cannon, concealing himself behind Luffy to do so and Chopper has his hand in his backpack with his little hoof no doubt holding a rumble ball. The whole bar watches the stand off between Zoro and this stranger, tense and waiting.

The black haired man pauses, looks at Zoro's blade and bursts out laughing as if it's the funniest thing he's seen in his life. The whole bar seems surprised at this but since the man apparently doesn't regard Zoro as a threat at all weapons are cautiously lowered but not put away.

"Oh Zoro, you make me laugh. You couldn't kill me if your life depended on it." The man laughs and pushes Zoro's sword aside with a finger.

"I- I mean it!" Zoro yells, his voice shaking as he swings the sword back around so it's again hovering an inch from the man's jugular. The man looks about as threatened as if Zoro were holding a feather duster at him rather than a blade that Sanji has seen Zoro spill buckets of blood with. But Sanji thinks that this stranger might have a point, Zoro's voice was shaking considerably just then but his sword is even less stable. Sanji in his life has never seen Zoro's sword shake like that, even on the brink of death, blood loss and exhaustion Zoro's sword has always been steady and deadly, now it's shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

"Captain, who is this?" One of the other pirates asks the dark haired man as he glances from one to the other.

_So he is a captain_, Sanji thinks triumphantly.

"Oh this? This is Zoro, I've told you guys all about him. He's the one that you should thank for getting us a ship, he made me a very rich man." The captain grins darkly.

The other pirates all turn to look at Zoro then, comprehension dawning on each of their faces like the slow rising of the sun. Then a ripple of laughter spreads through the room, cruel and mocking. Zoro stumbles back as if actually wounded by the laughter, his sword arm falls to his side and the dark-haired captain laughs too. Zoro spins on his heel and runs out of the bar as fast as lightning.

"Ah, poor little Zoro-kun always was sensitive like that." the man snickers to himself and the bar laughs louder.

Sanji's eyes widen suddenly. Zoro-kun.

Zoro-kun!

**ZORO-KUN!**

How could he have been so stupid not to have seen it before now? He bursts out of the door intent on catching Zoro but as he looks down the street Zoro is well into the distance already, running like the very flames of hell are licking at his heels. The rest of the crew pour out of the door behind him, but he's already off running down the street after Zoro.

"We've got to catch him! Hurry!" Sanji yells over his shoulder as he charges off down the street after Zoro. He doesn't have time to stop or explain anything to them, not if that man was who Sanji thinks he is.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ He berates himself as he runs. He should have put two and two together before now, hell, he should have realized that it was emotional fear on Zoro's face the moment he saw that look, Zoro just didn't do regular fear like that!

He looks up as he runs but Zoro's nowhere to be seen, it's possible that the marimo has gotten lost, but when it really matters Zoro is always where he needs to be so he's probably back at the ship already. Zoro's never outrun him before now but apparently Zoro has decided that now is a good time to start.

After a few more minutes of frantically running through the streets towards the harbor, his nakama long gone in the distance behind him, the Sunny's mast appears over the brow of the hill that he's running up. A few moments later and his feet are thudding up the gangplank as desperation surges through his veins. He needs to find Zoro and he needs to do it now!

He looks about but he can't see Zoro anywhere, he's fairly sure that the crow's nest and Zoro's weights room looked empty through the windows on his approach so the man must be somewhere inside the ship if he's even here. He turns to run to Zoro's bedroom, perhaps that's where Zoro has hidden himself, but his feet pause of their own accord. He glances up to the galley door, it's not open or ajar, there's no sign that anyone's been through it at all. But… his gut feeling is telling him that Zoro is there.

He jumps up the stairs three at a time and throws the galley door open with a loud bang. He looks around but the room is... empty. He's about to turn to leave and look elsewhere when a voice in his head prompts him to look around the counters. He peers around the edge of the counter and true enough Zoro is slumped against the wall, bracketed on either side by the edge of the counter and the fridge on the other side. He's got his knees pulled up against his chest and a bottle of sake clutched in one hand with all the desperation of a drowning man to his lifeline.

"Zoro." he breathes as he steps around the counter to stop at Zoro's feet, he kneels down and places a hand on Zoro's shoulder. A shudder runs through it and Sanji realizes in a detached manner that Zoro is sobbing into his knees. He can't get over the wrongness of this whole picture, he's never seen Zoro like this and the sight shakes him to the core.

He wants to grab Zoro and pull him close until he starts looking like Zoro again instead of this stranger in Zoro's body. Just then the rest of the crew burst into the galley, worried faces looking to him with an air of hope. Sanji leans up and waves them over, he considers letting them know that Zoro's alright but he'd be lying because Zoro clearly isn't. Luffy is in the front, he dashes over to Zoro and leans down looking at him with worry written over his young face. Behind him the rest of the crew gathers in as Sanji stands up to give Zoro some space.

"Zoro! What happened? Who was that guy?" Luffy asks, his eyes wide with concern. Zoro looks up at Luffy's voice, his eyes look red and raw and Sanji feels a surge of sympathy for the man.

"It's nothing." Zoro mutters, rubbing a red eye with the heel of his hand and looking off to the side.

Sanji growls angrily under his breath, typical Zoro refusing to talk about anything that actually bothers him. Zoro looks resolved to tell them nothing, he takes another swig of his sake and Sanji feels Luffy bristle angrily next to him.

"It isn't nothing! Now tell me!" Luffy yells, grabbing the sake bottle off of Zoro and throwing it at the wall to the side where it smashes spectacularly.

"Oi, asshole. Don't smash my kitchen up." Sanji snaps feeling annoyed at the mess he's going to have to clear up later, his poor kitchen.

"Okay, it's not nothing. But it's none of your business!" Zoro snaps angrily, folding his arms and glaring up at Luffy like the stubborn bastard that he is. Sanji knows this expression, Zoro's resolved to be as difficult as possible and when he gets to this stage he's never going to say anything. At this rate Luffy won't get a peep out of Zoro, let alone any helpful information.

"It _is_ our business when you nearly get us all caught in a massive bar fight with a bunch of crazy pirates." Nami points out huffily, Sanji thinks that she has a point.

"Well I didn't ask for your help!" Zoro shoots back, glaring at Nami.

"You're our nakama, dumbass. You've got our help whether you want it or not." Sanji points out and a murmur of agreement runs through the others at that.

"So tell us, that's an order." Luffy says sternly. Sanji's eyes widen at that, Luffy almost never plays the 'captain' card and it's easy to forget that the crazy rubber man is technically the one in charge on the ship. Still, he considers as he looks down at Zoro, Zoro is unlikely to disobey a direct order. He feels kind of bad about it but he hopes that Luffy can force Zoro to talk, to tell him what Zoro wouldn't tell him. Zoro glowers up at Luffy but sighs and begins to speak anyway.

"When I was sixteen I was bounty hunting for money while trying to make my way to the grand line to find Mihawk." Zoro sighs, scrubbing the green hair on the back on his head with his hand.

"Like when I met you?" Luffy asks interestedly.

"Yeah, something like that. Well I'd made a bit of a name for myself so the marines contacted me about a job, it was an awful lot of money, more than enough to buy my way to the grand line. A marine captain had ended up with a price set on his head by a group of assassins and pirates. The marines wanted me to go out and kill or capture all of the people who had accepted the job so no one else would try. I didn't have anything against the marines then so I accepted the job and the next day I ran into _him_." Zoro explains wearily with his eyes glued to the floor instead of looking at Luffy.

"Judas." Sanji says flatly, he's no longer in any doubt at all, that man was Judas. Zoro flinches a little at the name but nods.

"I got a little way out of town, about half a day's travel when I felt like I was going to die and passed out. When I woke up again he was there, he said I'd been poisoned and that he was a doctor. I thanked him and tried to leave but he insisted on coming with me in case I passed out again." Zoro continues looking pained at the memory.

"Was he the one who poisoned you in the first place?" Sanji asks carefully as the thought occurs to him.

"I don't know. Probably." Zoro sighs. Sanji winces internally, he really hopes that the guy wasn't a doctor, doctors are supposed to be people you can trust, not people who hurt you. That said if he is a doctor and hurt Zoro like that then maybe Chopper will crack and kill the bastard.

"Anyway, it took a few months for me to beat and catch all of these guys. Judas was with me the whole time. We became… pretty close." Zoro mutters unhappily.

"You were nakama." Usopp says quietly. Sanji glowers at his shoes, Usopp is close and Sanji desperately wishes that the sharpshooter was right but he knows that the connection runs deeper than that.

"Nh. Something like that." Zoro concedes.

"Funny thing," Zoro laughs bitterly in a way that suggests that it's not funny AT ALL, "people assume that if you walk into a marine controlled town with 'Roronoa Zoro - pirate hunter' that you're not an evil bastard pirate."

"I was there to collect my money after catching all of these assassins, but the Marine Captain couldn't see me until the next day. That night after I fell asleep Judas snuck out and poisoned the Marine Captain and then stabbed him to death once he was almost dead so that he died from stab wounds rather than poison. Then he disappeared into the night leaving me there all by myself. I was pretty surprised waking up to six rifles to the face and an accusation of murder." Zoro continues in a dead voice.

"He... He framed you for murder?" Robin blinks in shock, his other nakama look equally startled by this revelation.

"Yeah and marines aren't too forgiving about that kind of thing, they took my swords and set me up for execution a week later, I didn't even get a trial." Zoro says, his voice raw and painful.

"What happened? Obviously you didn't get executed, so what did happen?" Usopp asks wide eyed.

"A passing marine found out about the whole incident, she was a bit of a bounty hunter herself. She was after Judas as it happened, she managed to convince the marines that I was innocent and let me go. It was a close call though, I was up on the execution platform before the pardon was actually granted, another thirty seconds and I wouldn't be here." Zoro answers hoarsely with a far off look in his eyes.

Sanji's hands tighten on the counter, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. This asshole poisoned Zoro then healed him to gain his trust, made Zoro fall in love with him and to make that even worse Zoro's first time had been with this guy, then he'd abandoned him in the night, framed him for murder and left him to die! How could anyone even be so cruel? And poor Zoro was just 16 at the time, barely out of being a kid. Shit, he wanted to kill this guy for what he'd done.

"I'm gonna kick this guy's ass." Luffy states standing up and cracking his knuckles intimidating.

"Fuck that, I'm gonna kill him." Sanji growls. And he really wanted to, burned into his brain was the image of Zoro waking up scared and confused with a bunch of marines pointing guns at him only to find out that the man he loved had betrayed him completely. Right now nothing would make him happier than to kick the man until his brains coated his shoes, and then would kick him some more.

"Don't!" Zoro says quickly, grabbing Sanji's knee.

"Why not? Why are you protecting that bastard? Is it because you-" Sanji cuts himself off, he doesn't want to yell out that he thinks that Zoro is protecting this bastard because he still loves him. He'll be fucking furious if that bastard who deserves nothing still has Zoro in love with him after all he's done.

"It won't make anything better, it's not going to undo what he did is it? Just… leave him alone, I don't want anything to do with him. And I don't want you guys anywhere near him. I don't lay a foot on him Sanji, I mean it." Zoro says firmly, looking up at Sanji pleadingly.

Sanji winces and looks away, he know now that he's not going to be able to do a damn thing now that Zoro's asked him like that, regardless of the fact that he's not promised a damn thing to him. All he'll see if he attacks Judas is Zoro's distraught face begging him not to.

"Fine, but if he touches you then I won't hold to that promise." Luffy agrees begrudgingly.

"But Zoro, I don't understand. You trusted him! How could he do that to you?" Chopper asks in a small sad voice.

"I don't know Chopper." Zoro sighs, leaning back against the wall sadly. Luffy looks down at Zoro with a considering look on his face.

"You loved him." Luffy says gently. Sanji jerks at that and stares at Luffy, he can see Zoro staring shocked at their captain too. Luffy has always been perceptive at the oddest times but usually romance seems to pass him by, but not this time evidently.

"I- _oh_." Franky says softly, apparently catching on to precisely how Zoro loved this scumbag. Usopp and Chopper clearly are still in the dark and Nami doesn't look any more enlightened. Mercifully Franky herds the others out with the excuse of giving Zoro some privacy now that his story was over.

"You knew about this?" Luffy asks accusingly looking at Sanji after everyone else has filed out.

"I didn't know, just his name." Sanji answers shaking his head. If he had known then he would have taken the opportunity to kick that asshole's fucking face off before Zoro could look at him like that and stop him.

"Don't keep stuff like this from me Zoro. We're nakama, we're supposed to trust each other. How can we protect you if we don't know about things like this?" Luffy points out with a concerned look. Sanji expects Zoro to protest, to say that he doesn't need protecting, but instead he just nods a little meekly.

Luffy rolls his shoulders to dissipate some of the tension and with a sigh he leaves the galley, which just leaves Sanji and Zoro together. Sanji slides down onto the floor, his knees bumping against Zoro's.

"I don't need to ask why you didn't fight off the guys who tried to execute you do I? You didn't even want to live did you?" Sanji asks as he pops the booze cupboard by Zoro's hip open and retrieves a nice bottle of whiskey, his fingers deftly snag two glasses on his way out as well.

"Not particularly, no." Zoro answers in a hollow voice that hurts Sanji's heart to hear.

"But you got better. You moved on, had some other asshole boyfriend after him if I remember rightly." Sanji points out as his pours himself and Zoro two generous glasses of whiskey. He doesn't add that Zoro also technically moved onto him after that, he really doesn't want to put himself in the same category as those bastards.

"Clearly I'm full of stupid decisions." The swordsman snorts derisively and grabs his glass, throwing back the booze in one go.

"Hey, it's not a fucking shot marimo. Drink it slowly, this is my best stuff." He chides Zoro and pours him some more anyway. Zoro holds his glass out a little unsteadily and drinks a little slower this time.

"I was kinda worried you know, it's not like you to fall apart like this." He continues, looking at Zoro's red eyes and pink nose.

"Fuck you! I do have a heart you know, I am human." Zoro shoots back venomously.

"Hey, hey! I said I _was_ worried. But then I got it, this is your rock. I know that if I suddenly found myself back on that fucking rock where I nearly starved to death, even now years after I was last there, I'd fucking fall apart too. I almost died, it felt like I lost my soul there for a while. And _him_, that whole experience, that's sort of the same for you. You almost died, you got your heart ripped to shreds, I get it." Sanji says slowly. And he knows that he's speaking the truth, if they were to sail past that rock tomorrow he knows that all that old pain and fear would come rushing back and he'd be that same terrified kid all over again. Emotional wounds that deep never really close, they're still there under the surface waiting to rip open once more.

"Yeah." Zoro says quietly and takes a sip of his drink, "It kind of is."


	15. Chapter 15

He and Zoro had stayed in the galley for a fair amount of time getting progressively more and more drunk together. Drowning your sorrows was apparently a concept that Zoro was familiar with, Sanji knew that unfortunately sorrows were very good swimmers and drowning them in booze rarely worked in the long term. But it seemed to cheer him up a little for the time being and despite what had happened the last time they both got drunk together Sanji had to admit that Zoro was a good drinking partner.

Zoro had eventually left the galley on his own, although somewhat unsteadily, and retreated to the comparable safety of his weights room, much to his chagrin Sanji hadn't let him take the whiskey with him. Sanji was more than a little drunk himself and the whole crew had missed lunch in favor of letting Zoro sit in the kitchen with Sanji getting drunk and feeling sorry for himself. To make up for this Sanji was cooking a large dinner slightly early, a big lasagna with a sizeable salad and lots of garlic flatbread. The perfect food to warm weary hearts.

He was contemplating Zoro's tale. He wasn't sure what he'd do in that sort of situation, but then he'd never been in love. Perhaps Robin was right, it certainly seemed like love was the quickest way to crush someone's soul. But something in him rebelled against that idea, love could be good too.

Robin had said that he didn't love Zoro, and he supposed she was right. People were supposed to know when they were in love, it was supposed to be like the heavens opened and you felt like you were made for that person alone. It was as if their names were written in the stars for you and suddenly nothing else in life mattered but them. He didn't feel like that about Zoro. For a start he was plagued with uncertainty about what exactly he felt for Zoro and he didn't want to hurt the man so regardless of the pain it caused him he was trying to keep his distance.

But still... His heart ached to see Zoro in so much pain, he felt it as if Zoro's pain was his and he knew that if someone had offered to give him some of Zoro's anguish so the man wouldn't hurt so much then he'd do it in a shot. He felt so unbearably angry that Judas had been such a treacherous bastard, because of him Zoro couldn't trust anyone else like that again. Judas was the reason that he couldn't be with Zoro like he so desperately wanted to be. And perhaps if that second jerk boyfriend hadn't come along when he did then Zoro might have taken a chance on him instead. But he couldn't rewrite the past, no matter how much he wanted to. He wasn't even sure if there was any hope for him and Zoro, but he really hoped that there was.

God, he couldn't make up his damn mind. On the one had he recognized that it'd be cruel to keep persuing Zoro now that he knew how much the man had been through and especially since he couldn't love him. He knew what love was supposed to feel like and whilst what he felt for the marimo was powerfully strong he just didn't know what it really was. But despite all his good intentions and his resolution to back off from Zoro for the man's own good he kept _wanting_. He kept wanting to touch Zoro and be with him, he kept wanting to steal him away from everyone else, to kiss him until all his pain went away and he forgot about his past. Despite knowing that he shouldn't do any of that he couldn't help but want it all the same.

"Oh, is this dinner? It smells really good!" Nami exclaims as she pokes her head around the door effectively startling Sanji out of his thoughts.

"Oh yes, Nami-swan. I'm very sorry about missing lunch, I completely lost track of time, I hope you'll forgive me." he says feeling genuinely guilty about depriving his precious ladies of food.

"Ah, don't worry about it." Nami says waving away his concerns with a flap of her hand.

"It's fine, your little booze session with Zoro seemed to make him look a little more like himself. It was just so... weird seeing him so distraught, you know? He spends so much time being this big tough guy who has it all together that it's easy to forget that he's just as messed up as the rest of us." Nami muses softly, her wonderful heart as ever thinking of others.

"Yeah, it's a pretty sad situation when a pathological liar of a kid who's never met his dad and who's mother died has the happiest background of all of us." Sanji snorts in agreement.

"True, but anyway, you did seem to make Zoro a little more like himself. Not that I really approve of you two getting drunk in the middle of the day." Nami points out with a raised eyebrow.

"It'll be fine. I'm not that drunk, and I couldn't say that I was from the Baratie if I couldn't cook when drunk now could I?" Sanji snickers to himself remembering the days of waking up still drunk in the morning and having to cook perfect meals or risk Zeff's peg leg to the face.

"Hm. Well anyway, I wanted to tell you that you don't need to cook for Usopp or Luffy. They didn't realize that you were making dinner and went out to eat in town." Nami explains. Sanji's face falls at that, he hates having his dinner plans ruined, he'd cooked for a specific number and now there was too much!

"What? Ugh, fine but there'll be lots of leftovers." Sanji grumbles unhappily.

"Not for long, not on this ship." Nami grins and can't help but concede that she's right, Luffy will probably eat all the leftovers when he gets back anyway regardless of the fact that he's eaten elsewhere.

"Could you call everyone else for dinner?" Sanji asks with a sigh. Nami nods sweetly and leaves to gather the rest of the crew for dinner.

Sanji makes his way to the fridge and opens it to retrieve the salad that had been chilling in there for the last five or ten minutes. He realizes with a start that right where he's standing now is where he found Zoro earlier today. Where he found Zoro curled in on himself and sobbing, not even remotely like the Zoro that Sanji knew.

His grip on the fridge handle tightens. Is he really going to be able to restrain himself from killing that asshole should he see him again? And it's not inconceivable that he will see him again, he still has to get supplies at this island so he can't stay on the ship and avoid the man. Is he really going to be able to look that smug bastard in the face, knowing what he's done to Zoro and not kick him to death? He really wants to kick him until his flesh rips and the bastard's blood is shining his shoes, he knows how, Zeff trained him after all and the man wasn't called 'red shoes Zeff' for nothing.

But… but Zoro had pleaded with him not to. And, okay, he hadn't promised or anything but he didn't need to, not when Zoro looked at him like that. But did Zoro's story really make sense? Was Zoro banning them from hurting Judas because it wouldn't change the past? That didn't even make sense, sure it wouldn't change what he'd done but he'd get his punishment for it. That was a worthwhile goal wasn't it? But he couldn't suppress the gnawing worry that it was because Zoro still loved that evil, scum-sucking, treacherous, slimy bastard.

That thought alone filled him with rage. Judas didn't _deserve_ to have someone like Zoro in love with him, he didn't deserve to be trusted with Zoro's heart and he absolutely hated the idea that the bastard still had some of it in his hands even now. He hated the thought that the swordsman didn't want them hurting Judas because he still loved him. Fuck, Judas didn't deserve that, he didn't deserve Zoro loving him then and he _certainly_ didn't deserve it now either.

He felt a familiar acidic trickle of jealousy run through his chest, curling around his insides. The strength and suddenness of the feeling startled him, and he was self-aware enough to recognize jealousy when he felt it. But… it didn't make any sense, why should he be jealous of Judas? Zoro had as much as admitted that he was in love with Sanji, Robin had insisted upon it as well.

_But does he love you like he loves Judas?_ A nasty voice hissed in his brain. Perhaps that was it, perhaps after Judas Zoro couldn't love like that again, and it'd be perfectly understandable if that were the case. But… fuck, that wasn't _fair_! Judas never deserved Zoro and whereas he- fuck… he didn't deserve Zoro either. Judas hadn't loved Zoro and neither did he, okay so he had the moral advantage of not actively trying to destroy Zoro and, you know, frame him for murder. But he didn't love Zoro back, though his feelings for the marimo were very intense to say the least but he'd know if those feelings were love and they weren't, so why should he deserve Zoro loving him at all? Granted he wanted Zoro to love him, he wanted it so badly it almost hurt. He wasn't sure he'd ever wanted anything else as much as this, except perhaps for finding All Blue, but even then that was something he wanted on a more intellectual basis, it didn't gnaw at his very bones like his need for Zoro did.

He'd never felt like this about anyone before, in the past if someone had fallen for him then it'd been nice, a stroke to his ego perhaps, but he'd always been careful with the hearts of others in that sort of situation. He'd never wanted to lead anyone into falling for him when he knew he didn't love them back. But Zoro was completely different. He wanted to take Zoro's heart and have all of it to himself, he didn't want to entertain the idea that anyone else had even a little piece of it. Neither did he want to entertain the notion that perhaps Zoro's heart was too damaged to love anyone properly again. All he knew is that he _wanted_ it and he wanted Zoro. The whole situation was completely insane and illogical but that didn't seem to lessen the feeling at all. Nor did it dampen the hurt when Zoro made it clear that the two of them were never going to be together, ever.

That fucking Judas! He ruined everything; all of this was his fault. If he hadn't hurt Zoro then maybe Sanji could have kept Zoro, maybe Zoro wouldn't have left Sanji alone in bed knowing all too keenly what he was missing out on.

He slams his foot into the refrigerator hard enough to dent it. He looks up when he hears Nami's startled squeak, she had been reaching out to him to get his attention when he'd unleashed his rage on his poor fridge.

"I- sorry Nami. I didn't see you there, I didn't mean to scare you." He apologizes quickly for startling his beautiful flower.

"Hey, don't take it out on the fridge, man." Franky's voice says from behind him. Sanji turns to realize that at some point whilst he was scowling at the fridge everyone has come in for dinner. Well, except Usopp and Luffy of course and… his eyes scan the room but come up with no silly crop of grass-like hair, bad posture and scruffy clothes. Zoro's not shown up for dinner.

"Where is Zoro?" He asks with a frown. The others look a little uncomfortable at that, as if no one wants to be the one to tell 'crazy Sanji' that someone has dared to miss a meal. Nami ends up being the one braving it all and speaking.

"He ah, said that he wasn't hungry." She says softly.

"Oh really?" He says a little sharply and retrieves the salad and slams the fridge door shut.

He puts the salad bowl on the table a little more forcefully than is probably necessary. How dare Zoro not come to dinner? He knows how he feels about people going hungry, and yet he's willing to piss him off anyway. He glares at Zoro's empty chair and angrily grabs him a slice of lasagna, some bread and a portion of salad. Zoro's going to goddamn eat his dinner even if he has to cram it down the marimo's throat himself!

Balancing the plate in his hand he climbs up the mast to Zoro's weight's room and shoves the trapdoor open with his shoulder. Zoro is pushing a bar insanely loaded up with weights above his head as he lies flat on the floor, he doesn't even turn to look at Sanji.

"You're not hungry?" Sanji snaps accusingly. Zoro frowns and sighs deeply and puts the weights on the floor above his head.

"I didn't say it just to piss you off, I'm just not hungry. And I don't feel like having everyone else giving me pitying looks all through dinner." Zoro answers flatly, throwing an arm over his eyes to blot out the bright afternoon sunshine.

"It's not pity goddamn it! It's sympathy! And they know better than to try to give you any of that you thick headed moron!" Sanji shoots back.

"Same difference. Either way I'm not hungry." Zoro shrugs and moves to pick his weights up again. Sanji surges forward and slams his foot down on the bar, preventing Zoro from lifting the weight. Zoro scowls up at him and folds his arms petulantly.

Something inside Sanji wilts, he feels tired and drawn out. He just doesn't have the energy to fight Zoro any more.

"Don't do this to me Zoro. The only two things that I'm good at are kicking ass and cooking. So since you won't even let me hurt that bastard the least you can do is eat my food." He says wearily rubbing his forehead.

Zoro's scowl softens and he looks away uncomfortably. Sanji squashes the urge to ask Zoro if he is indeed still in love with Judas, he doesn't want to know and he's not sure he could bear an affirmative answer. With a sigh he puts the full plate down on the floor by Zoro and turns to leave.

He pulls the hatch open and climbs down feeling dejected. He only pauses when he hears the crunch. Sanji turns and looks over his shoulder to see the stupid swordsman crunching his way through the garlic bread and resolutely not looking at him. The cook smiles slightly at that and heads back down to join the others for dinner feeling satisfied that Zoro is at least not going to go hungry.

As Sanji is standing in front of the bathroom mirror at midnight that night he supposes that he should have realized that today was not going to go well. Any day that starts with the current object of your affection's evil ex turning up clearly is not going to be a good day, and being drunk by noon is not a good sign either. Nor had he appreciated being banned from taking his righteous anger out on said ex or the nagging worry that Zoro was still in love with that asshole.

Sanji had been briefly comforted however that he wasn't the only one having a bad day, Usopp skipped Sanji's lovingly prepared meal and went out with Luffy to eat ashore, it turned out that the food he ate was not so good and ended up with a case of food poisoning. This had been sweet justice as far as Sanji was concerned, that was until Usopp threw up on him, his bed and pretty much everything else in the bunkroom in the middle of the night during the first solid night's sleep that he'd had in about two weeks.

Sanji has been scrubbing himself in the shower for what feels like forever but he swears that the horrible smell of Usopp-puke is sticking to him like glue. Without a doubt that had to have been the most physically repulsive thing to ever have happened to him in his life. That finishing touch has most definitely put today up in the top five worst days of Sanji's life. He stares at himself in the mirror, he looks clean but he's not certain that he is.

He hears someone banging on the door. He glares at it, if it's Usopp he's going to be incredibly pissed. In fact, he can't think of who else it could be at this hour that'd be so insistent on getting his attention.

"Fuck off Usopp! You're not getting this goddamn shower until I'm done you disgusting little excuse for a human being! When I catch you I'm gonna rip off your fucking legs, beat you half to death with them, cram them down your stupid throat and then set you on fire!" He yells and wrenches the door open, intending on doing just that to the longnose.

However he doesn't find the cowardly sharpshooter on the other side of the door after all, which is probably good for Usopp, instead he finds Zoro standing there trying to contain his laughter.

"Oh man, I thought Franky was lying but Usopp really did hurl on you didn't he?" Zoro laughs loudly, clutching his sides as his whole body shakes with mirth. Sanji's face falls at that, just who he wanted to see him humiliated like this, Zoro.

"Shut up! Did you just come here to laugh at me?" he snaps angrily and begins to consider the merits of setting the bastard marimo on fire instead of Usopp.

The still giggling swordsman straightens slightly and rubs at his eyes, he's actually been laughing so hard that his eyes have started watering.

"Ahahah, no, I actually came here to bring you something clean to wear. Laughing at you is just a much appreciated bonus." Zoro cackles and hands Sanji a set of soft, clean pajamas.

"Well I'm glad to see that you're so fucking amused." Sanji says, snatching his clothes off of Zoro. With a sudden flash of clarity and with the tune of Zoro's somewhat maliciously gleeful laughter ringing in his ears he realizes that, actually, he is glad. Even if it's at his expense Zoro is laughing again, he looks happy and… normal again. Okay, had he been offered the choice he's not sure he would have agreed to have Usopp upchuck on him to make Zoro laugh but he's pleased about the swordsman's reprieve from self-pity all the same.

"Ugh, I don't feel clean enough for clothes yet. I swear I can still smell Usopp's lunch all over me." Sanji grimaces and tugs a strand of his hair close to his face to sniff it. He just can't tell any more, perhaps the smell is just stuck in his nose rather than on him.

"Come here." Zoro tuts and hooks a finger into the towel wrapped around Sanji's waist. The cook gasps and stumbles forward. There has to be something wrong with him, it's been two weeks since he and Zoro had sex but all Zoro has to do is just touch him and every nerve in his body screams for the swordsman. And it's more than a little disturbing how he can swing from being quite understandably grossed out about being puked on to 'ohgodyesZoro' just at the other man's touch. To his somewhat fleeting sense of shame he all but melts against Zoro as the swordsman buries his nose in Sanji's hair and inhales, after a moment though Zoro steps back.

"You smell just fine to me." Zoro shrugs. Sanji blinks and comes back into his normal frame of mind. _Ah, yes. That was what Zoro was doing._ He thinks shaking his head.

"Ah, thanks." He murmurs distantly. He does however notice the slight pinking of Zoro's cheeks, perhaps he wasn't the only one suffering from the intoxicating presence of the other. After a moment he retreats into the bathroom and gets changed. He takes a few seconds to stare at himself in the mirror and reassure himself that he's being ridiculous, Zoro has made it perfectly clear that the two of them were over before they even really began. Just because Zoro might occasionally touch him doesn't mean that he's going to be able to go anywhere near Zoro, he thinks with a small twinge of pain in his chest.

He opens the bathroom door expecting Zoro to be gone but instead the swordsman is leaning against the wall by his bedroom door looking a little distant. His eyes brighten slightly when they land on Sanji though in his clean clothes.

"So, I was thinking." Zoro begins slowly.

"Hope you didn't hurt yourself." Sanji snorts because, well, teasing Zoro is one of his main purposes in life regardless of how irrationally infatuated with the swordsman he currently is. Zoro casually flips him off and continues talking, a concession to Sanji's teasing but not enough of one to disrupt what he's saying.

"You should get in my bed." Zoro finishes.

Sanji feels his jaw fall open and his face redden at that. Surely Zoro isn't suggesting what he thinks he is, is he? After all Zoro had been very clear about that night never happening again, but then again Zoro has been constantly changing his mind up until now. Does he really mean it?

"Ah! I meant- you can't exactly sleep in your bed tonight can you? And I wasn't going to sleep tonight anyway, not after… not after everything." Zoro corrects himself red faced.

Sanji understands, Zoro is doing this out of kindness as a nakama. This isn't an invitation from a lover or even a gesture from someone who loves you. As he follows Zoro into his room he tries to ignore the sting that he shouldn't feel, he needs to sleep and Zoro is being kind. He shouldn't be thinking of the last time he was in this bed with Zoro, he shouldn't be thinking of the look in Zoro's eyes as he came and most of all his chest shouldn't be aching this much. His heart can't be breaking because he doesn't love Zoro. It sure feels like his heart is breaking though, if this is what rejection feels like when you don't love someone he'd hate to ever feel what heartbreak from someone you do love feels like.

Still, as he sits down on the bed he wishes with every cell in his body that Zoro will slide into bed with him and make him feel whole again. But instead Zoro shuts the door after himself and leaves him in the dark to sleep.

To his surprise he does sleep, he supposes that the scent of Zoro's body in the swordsman's bed is still comforting even if the man isn't actually there. Sanji isn't surprised when he wakes up in the small hours of the morning with a yell and the horrible feeling of starvation clinging to him again. So much for a good night's sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

Sanji usually enjoys shopping in the markets of new islands, but this whole island and the brush with Judas has put a bitter taste in his mouth. However the cupboards on the Sunny are nearly empty and they aren't going to fill themselves, so he has to once again leave the ship to go shopping. This time he has Franky with him pulling their large wooden shopping cart and keeping him company. The cyborg has been keeping a not especially subtle eye on him the last two weeks, ever since he broke down and cried on the man. Franky hasn't been asking any probing questions though and Sanji appreciates that the shipwright is respecting his privacy. He has his suspicions that Franky has some inkling of what's been going on between him and Zoro, ever since his illuminated 'oh' when Luffy pointed out that Zoro once loved Judas.

"Nami said that the log pose should only take a few days to set, perhaps Judas and his crew have left already?" Franky suggests hopefully as they walk through the market together.

"Don't jinx anything." Sanji replies flatly and dumps two large sacks of potatoes in the cart after paying for them quickly.

"I know everyone else is busy being worried about Zoro, and that's not to say that I'm not worried about him as well, but… I'm worried about you too bro." Franky says delicately as they walk further through the bustling market place.

Sanji grinds his teeth into his cigarette. Zoro's behaviour the past few days has been wildly swinging from depressed to angry and only occasionally landing on numbness in the middle that is somehow scarier than the other two. Zoro is most definitely not over Judas and both seeing him and being aware that he is nearby seems to be affecting the swordsman terribly. In comparison what problems does _he_ really have? Okay, so he's pining pathetically after Zoro and feeling useless for not being able to help him but that hardly compares does it?

"I'm fine Franky." He says dismissively and continues up the road. He still needs to buy cigarettes and coffee but after that they're done and can retreat back to the blessed safety of the ship.

Franky's large hand lands on his shoulder and effectively halts his progress up the road. He turns to see Franky looking at him square in the eye, his sunglasses pushed out of the way into his hair making the eye contact all the more real.

"I know I don't show it sometimes bro, but I am older than you. Whatever it is that's eating at you, I've most likely been through it too. You can talk to me, you know that right?" Franky says reassuringly, he clearly wants Sanji to confess his troubles but Sanji has absolutely no interest in doing so.

"I know that, but as I said, I'm fine." Sanji answers and shrugs Franky's hand away. He turns again and heads to the final shop for the day. Franky looks a little put out at his unwillingness to discuss the catastrophe between himself and the swordsman. But really, what could Franky do to help other than sympathise? It's pointless talking about it.

With cigarettes and coffee purchased the two of them set off back to the harbour, which is more of a cove at the end of a sandy beach with some docks. It's a little way away from the town but it's a pleasant walk over the sand, there are a number of other ships docked in the cove both pirate and non and until now Sanji has entirely veered away from speculating just which of those belongs to Judas, just which ship was bought with the money that betraying Zoro got him. All he needs to do is to get back onto the ship and stay on it until they sail off in a few days and then this whole mess will be behind them.

He doesn't even see Judas coming as it happens, the man appears on the beach from the side and it's only at his laugh that Sanji looks around.

"Hey, you two are with Zoro-kun huh? I remember you from the bar." He says loudly to get their attention.

Sanji turns rigidly and looks at Judas. Aside from the fact that Sanji hates the man's guts he doesn't look any different although Sanji can plainly see that the man has a mean face. Either he must be able to pull off looking innocent really well when he wants to or Zoro was very open minded and trusting back then. Sanji wouldn't trust the man even half as far as he could throw him even if he didn't already know what he'd done his poor swordsman.

He wants nothing more than to kick Judas until he's dead and then some, but Zoro's pleading face flashes before his eyes and with difficulty he restrains himself.

"Come on Sanji, let's go." Franky says urgently tugging on his sleeve.

Sanji allows the mechanic to pull him along and away from Judas, he stares down absently at the sand as they walk away. It's better this way, despite how much it raises his hackles to walk from this guy he doesn't want to disappoint Zoro. He tries to focus on breathing calmly, on the sound of the ocean lapping at the shore only a few feet away from them, he tries to think calm things.

"You know," Judas says mockingly to one of his crewmates by him, "blondie here ran off like a shot after little Zoro ran away crying. I wonder why."

Sanji can _hear_ the fucking grin in that bastard's voice. He stops suddenly and turns. He glares fiercely at Judas and his two cronies, trying to translate into a look just how much he hates him.

"Fuck you, we know what you did to Zoro. You're a terrible excuse for a human being and I hope the Grand Line chews you up and spits you out." Sanji snarls at him as his stomach churns angrily.

"Sanji, don't do this man. Let's just get out of here before we lose our heads, I don't know about you but I can't look at this guy for much longer without ripping him apart." Franky says in a low voice, his eyes trained in a dark glare at the three men.

"Tch, lead the way." Sanji agrees, he doesn't know how much more his self restraint can take. He lets out a calming breath and continues back towards the ship with Franky.

"Your name's Sanji then? You know, I might be on the wrong track here but I think you and I have something in common." Judas yells after him, his nasty little voice goading.

"You wish you had anything in common with me you bastard!" Sanji yells over his shoulder and keeps walking.

"I think we do, you know. Perhaps something like Zoro's ass." Judas adds loudly.

Sanji freezes, his whole body suddenly immobilised. The cart that Franky is pulling catches his leg from the suddenness of the stop. Over the rush of blood in his ears he manages to hear the next thing that Judas says.

"Yeah, I thought so. You're fucking him aren't you? I have to compliment you on your taste, Zoro is a wonderful little bitch isn't he?" Judas' voice says with all the sweetness of poison being poured into Sanji's ears.

He turns slowly, the sand of the beach crunching underfoot. His eyes fall on Judas who is wearing the nastiest most evil smile Sanji has seen in his entire life. If possible as Sanji turns that terrible smile widens showing more jaggedly vicious teeth.

"Dude, don't do it. Just walk away." Franky urges him, pushing his sunglasses up and giving Sanji a serious look. Sanji has half a mind to consider it until Judas speaks again.

"Hahaha, I knew it. You know, I'm not really into guys but it was obvious that Zoro was. It really was too easy to get him to put out, a look here, a kind word there. And as I said, I'm not into guys so much but, well, one hole's much the same as another really isn't it?" he says smugly, his posture cocky and his grin cruel.

Sanji's fists snap closed and blood rushes loudly in his ears, his hands are actually shaking now with rage.

"Shut. _Up_." He grits out through tightly clenched teeth. Judas' buddies are laughing now, laughing at Zoro's expense, at his expense.

"Hey, don't get so uptight about it. I'm just saying. Oh, tell me something, does Zoro still do all the work for you if you let him? Just climb on top of you and fuck himself without you even having to do a damn thing?" he asks nastily.

Sanji's eyes widen at that, memories of Zoro above him fly before his eyes. Memories of Zoro's naked body resting on Sanji's hips. Sanji feels himself positively shaking with anger now. Every inch of him is screaming for this guy's blood, every molecule in his body wants to kick this fucker until he begs for mercy and then show him none. He forces Zoro's face into his mind, Zoro's plea that he not lay so much as a toe on this bastard. He tries to force himself to think of what Zoro wants, he can't kick his guy to death, not when his word to Zoro is at stake.

"Ooh, I'll take that as a yes. He does still do all the fucking work. Hah, fucking work, I'm a funny man." Judas chuckles at his own pun.

"SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!" Sanji yells furiously, his fists are clenched so tight that they _hurt_.

"I'd really listen to him, if you keep pushing him like that he's going to kill you man." Franky warns sensibly.

"Ah, I'm not trying to provoke blondie here. This is just a casual talk between two guys who've used the same fuck toy. I'm just comparing notes is all." Judas says, casual as can be.

Sanji moves unthinkingly, his honour, his protective streak and his pride can only take so much. His brain has shorted out and just let his body take control. He practically flies at Judas, his eyes zeroing in on the man's fucking grinning face, his almost reptilian smug grin. Sanji's fist connects with force and Judas' head snaps back suddenly at the connection between Sanji's clenched fist and his face, he staggers back but Sanji isn't going to stop, he's not going to have mercy, he's not going to retrain himself any more.

He leaps after Judas and smacks the other man in the gut with his right fist, twisting his wrist up into the man's ribcage and fervently wishing that he had his cooking knives on him, he could gut this fucker with a flick of his hand.

Judas staggers back, his two buddies too stunned to even react to try to stop him. His knee flies up and smacks the bastard in the ribs, he hears a satisfying crack of bones and he flies sideways into the waves of the ocean. Sanji is on him though, he leaps on the man's chest and pins his shoulders with his knees and pulls back a fist, he's going to make this shitty bastard feel every tear that he made Zoro shed, every moment of fear and doubt that's plagued the swordsman's mind since this asshole got his claws into him. Judas is going to pay for every bit of it.

He slams his hand down on Judas' face, his fist connects with the slimeball's nose splitting the skin across the bridge but not quite breaking it in one. The next punch however does it just fine. Sanji grins with sick satisfaction.

"FUCKER! I'LL MAKE YOU PAY!" He screams and slams a fist into Judas' face again and again. His vision starts going red with rage, he's going to kill this bastard and it's going to feel so _good_.

"No! You're gonna kill him!" Franky yells, grabbing the back of Sanji's suit shirt and pulling hard. Sanji's gaze swings around, Franky is trying to stop him, trying to pull him away from this bastard. He lashes out with a foot at catches Franky right in his metal nose, sending the shipwright flying back into the waves. Nothing is going to stop him, not now.

Franky pulling him back though has freed Judas' trapped arm, and with his arm free Judas gets a lucky hit in and smacks Sanji square in the mouth splitting his lip. Sanji hardly feels the pain through the adrenaline but he can taste the tang of his own blood in his mouth. He's not going to let the bastard get another shot like that in, he needs to end this now. His hands descend on Judas' throat and he squeezes for all he's worth. Judas thrashes in the water, his legs flailing and his arms clawing at Sanji's arms trying to get a grip on Sanji to throw him off, but Sanji hasn't got this far through the Grand Line without knowing how to fight.

Instinctively the bastard's hands fly to his own throat, trying to claw Sanji's hands off of him as he gasps for air. But Sanji's grip is firm and with the way the waves are picking up the fucker might drown before he suffocates, either is fine with him, he just wants the bastard dead.

A clang to the back of his head makes him see stars for a second and strong arms pull him away from the bastard gasping for life in the water. Broad forearms decorated with blue stars swim into the edges of his vision. He flails desperately, Franky might be nakama but right now he'll happily hurt him to end Judas' life once and for all.

"Stop it! You promised Zoro!" Franky hisses into his ear. For all the affect it has though Franky may as well have bellowed it at him. At once all the fight goes out of him and his body goes slack against Franky's.

Fuck. Zoro.

What the hell is Zoro going to say when he finds out what he's just tried to do? Everyone Zoro loves keeps lying to him and betraying him and he's just gone and done the same, Zoro asked him not to and he couldn't manage to hold to that small request.

"Hey, if you two know what's good for you take your captain out of here and get lost." Franky threatens, holding Sanji in one arm whilst pointing his other arm in its transformed gun shape at Judas' mooks. Sanji can see through the clear sight in Franky's hand and the cyborg's aim as always is deadly.

The two men grab their boss from the water's edge where he's still spluttering for air and quickly drag him off in the opposite direction. After they've gone what Franky judges to be a safe distance away his arm clicks back into something resembling human and he pulls Sanji to his feet properly and leaves him to stand under his own power.

Sanji feels numb as he stands there. He can already picture Zoro's face when he gets back.

"_I asked you to do ONE thing for me Sanji, one thing!"_ He can already imagine Zoro's justifiable anger. What has he done? What the hell would he have done if he'd actually killed that bastard? What could he have done, just hidden the body and hope Zoro didn't work the truth out? Stupid, stupid, _stupid_!

"Move it or those guys are gonna be back with fifty friends to try to kill us!" Franky snaps and yanks on Sanji's shirt collar to get him walking. They walk quickly for a way down the beach, Franky keeping an eye out for any reinforcements which thankfully don't show and Sanji walking numbly along the beach still in a daze over what happened.

"Alright, hold up. What the hell was that?" Franky says after a while, stopping with a hand on his hip and a pointed look at Sanji.

"What do you mean? You heard what he said!" Sanji says wide eyed, gesturing down the beach at the direction that Judas and his crew went.

"Yeah, I did. And it pissed me off too, but I didn't just try to murder the man!" Franky frowns at him.

"It's- it's nothing." Sanji says uncomfortably. The last thing he wants is to explain why Judas' comments about Zoro in bed struck such a nerve in him and provoked such a violent reaction on his part.

"I'm not stupid Sanji, and it clearly isn't 'nothing'! So spill!" The shipwright says shoving Sanji in the chest hard enough for Sanji to land hard on his ass on a sand dune behind him. Franky looks at him with an unimpressed expression on his face clearly indicating that he's not going to let Sanji leave until he explains himself.

"He's right isn't he? About you and Zoro I mean." Franky says quietly. Sanji's head snaps up and his eyes widen in shock.

"Ah! I didn't mean it in the horrible way that he said it but... you and Zoro are... together aren't you?" Franky corrects himself hastily.

Now that the rage from assuming Franky thought that Judas' words were accurate he felt a little… dull. It was a painful though, he and Zoro together? Sanji feels his heart sink with that thought.

"I wish," he mutters bitterly. He stares down at his shoes morosely. "Zoro won't even give me a chance." he adds unhappily.

"Wow. I never would have guessed you to be the type that likes guys." Franky says thoughtfully stroking his pointed chin.

"Got a problem with that asshole?" He snaps, glaring up at Franky through the thick blonde curtain of his hair. If Franky does have a problem with him liking men as well as ladies then he's more than welcome to discuss it with the flat of Sanji's shoe. He really does not need the disapproval of his nakama to add to all his problems right now.

"No, no! God you're jumpy! I just meant because you're always flirting with the girls I always thought that your bread was just buttered on the other side is all." Franky insists holding up his hands defensively. Sanji glowers at the shipwright for his assumption anyway.

"So tell me about you and Zoro then." the blue haired man continues in an effort to get the conversation back on track.

"No, it's none of your business." Sanji mutters looking off to the side, unable to meet Franky's stiff expression.

"See, I was willing to let this whole thing be your business before, but not now when you're going around strangling and half drowning people because of it." The cyborg says flatly, and perhaps he has a point. Sanji has lost his temper before in the past, but never quite that badly.

"Judas is hardly a person, he's a weasel." He grouses unhappily because even if Franky is right that he's out of control he doesn't want to talk about it.

"Stop procrastinating. What do you mean Zoro won't give you a chance? How about you start explaining there?" Franky suggests.

Sanji squints at Franky and then sighs. From the determined look on the blue-haired man's face he can see that Franky isn't going to give up on this any time soon, so he may as well tell him. Perhaps starting at the beginning would be a good idea.

"Well, I've always… you know, been attracted to Zoro. But he's always pissed me off too so I've just stuck to arguing with him. But that night on the beach Zoro was there and I was drunk and he was hot and, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Sanji explains awkwardly. Franky smacks a hand to his own forehead and sighs in a long suffering manner.

"You're an idiot. Go on." Franky groans and sits down next to him.

"Well, I kissed him and I was perfectly prepared to back off if he wasn't into it, but he was so… yeah. Everything was going _fine_ until Zoro changed his mind, insulted me, punched me in the face and pissed off into the fucking jungle for two days." Sanji grumbles still remembering how fucking confused and angry he'd been at Zoro back then, the massive black eye that he'd got hadn't helped his mood either.

"That was what that fight was about?" Franky says raising an eyebrow in surprise, Sanji nods and continues.

"After a while Zoro apologised and explained that the whole thing was a terrible idea but I didn't buy that so I kept flirting with him, because he clearly felt the same! Zoro eventually admitted it but told me that nothing was going to happen and he didn't do one night stands anyway." He explains.

He thinks that, in hindsight, he might have been better off backing off when Zoro told him to. But even if Zoro had been upfront about all of his past and issues he's not sure that he would have stopped even then, he had has this inexplicable pull towards Zoro, a strange need to fix his damaged heart. Even if he had known better he's not sure that he would have done anything different.

"That sounds like a good plan on Zoro's part. But I'm guessing that you didn't back off." The Franky says as he gives Sanji a disapproving look.

"Don't look at me like that! I didn't want just one night, I wanted Zoro! And it pissed me off that he wouldn't even give me a say in the matter! I mean, I wanted to be with him. Zoro might be annoying sometimes but he's actually really great. He's loyal and strong, he's honourable and even considerate sometimes when he wants to be! He's just… real. And I wanted that, I wanted him for all of that for however long anything between us lasted. It kind of hurt that he didn't think the same of me." He says sadly. In truth the fact that Zoro rejected him so easily hurt, that was one of the reasons he'd been so insistent on the date, he wanted to show Zoro just how good of a boyfriend he could be. And though Zoro had said he'd enjoyed himself he'd still denied him.

"So I took him on a date, to prove that, I don't know… that I was someone worth wanting as well. And it went fine up until we were nearly boiled alive by cannibals." He says darkly. He'd never taken someone on a date that'd ended so badly, really, near death experiences were not good romance material.

"I did wonder why you were so concerned about Zoro after that, did you feel guilty or..." Franky trails off and gives him a thoughtful look.

"Of course I felt guilty! I nearly got Zoro killed! All because I couldn't stop thinking about what I wanted. God, I'm a shitty person." He whines with his head in his hands as the realisation hits him. He _is_ just as bad as Zoro's stupid exes, he'd not thought at all about what Zoro wanted, or at least not any more than he needed to outside of furthering his own goals. He should have just left Zoro alone, that was clearly what the swordsman wanted. Franky looks like he's about to say something but he continues, he wants to get the rest of this off of his chest.

"But two weeks ago everything changed. I don't even know why he did it, maybe it was just to shut me up or something, it didn't feel like that but… I don't know what else to think." He says sincerely hoping that the night between he and Zoro hadn't just been to placate him. It really hadn't felt like it at the time but he couldn't help but worry, he couldn't ignore the fear that their night together had meant more to him than it had to Zoro.

"We slept together. And I'd thought… with what he'd said before that we'd be together then. But he changed his mind the next morning or, or maybe he'd not intended to start anything in the first place. Either way he set me straight, said basically that it'd been a big fucking mistake." He says shakily. He leans forward and tangles his hands in his own hair and stares down at the sand, blinking furiously so that he doesn't cry. He's not going to cry over this situation again, especially not on Franky's shoulder. He doesn't even know what's wrong with him, he's never this emotional over relationships and considering that he and Zoro don't have a relationship at all he shouldn't be even the slightest bit misty eyed.

"He said that? I- Wait, two weeks ago? So… that morning when I found you in the kitchen, that was _that_ morning?" Franky says wide eyed as all the pieces start to fall into place.

Sanji doesn't say anything but scuffs his shoe in the sand, he thinks that it's obvious enough.

"Oh man, I'm sorry. It sucks to be in love with someone and get rejected." Franky says patting Sanji on the back sympathetically. Sanji's back straightens and he looks at Franky with his eyes wide and his jaw open.

"Love?" He stammers shocked, "I'm not in love with him. That's half the problem!"

"You… what? What do you mean you don't love him?" Franky asks looking confused.

"What do you mean 'what do I mean'? I'm not in love with Zoro, I mean sure I feel really strongly for him but-" He says standing up and running his hands through his hair as stress thrums in his veins. This was the crux of the whole matter wasn't it? He didn't love Zoro, everyone who was interested in Zoro never loved him back, he didn't want to be one of those guys. But what could he do about it? You were either in love or you weren't, and he wasn't.

Franky on the other hand was looking at him like he'd gone mad, as if he'd just declared that he was a sea-lion or something equally ridiculous.

"You're telling me that you don't think you're in love with Zoro? Despite the fact that you've been agonising about the fact that he's not returning your affections? Despite the fact that you just nearly murdered a man because he hurt Zoro and insulted him? And that you, who fight just with your feet so that you don't damage your precious hands that you value so much for cooking, just beat a man half to death because Zoro asked that you not lay a foot on that man? You're telling me that despite all that you don't think that you're in love with him?" Franky says disbelief ringing loudly in his voice.

"I didn't- that's not…" Sanji starts to protest, he flexes his hands and for the first time feels a jolt of pain.

Feeling distantly stunned he holds his hands up before him, he turns them and looks at the back of them. His knuckles are red and shredded, he's sure that most of the blood on his hands isn't his but… he can feel the sting of torn skin that suggests some of it is his own. He can't believe he didn't feel the pain until now, the adrenaline must have only just worn off. He's never punched anyone before. His hands are far too precious to him to do something like that. But… but he just _did_ didn't he? He just… hit someone with his bare hands, repeatedly.

"I… it's not because Zoro asked me not to kick him." He denies distantly as he flexes his fingers experimentally and feels the sting in his hands again.

"Really? Because you wouldn't kick him but you managed to kick me in the face just fine." The other man points out gesturing at the trickle of blood from his metal nose.

"Sorry about that. But, I'm not in love with Zoro. I'd know if I was. You can feel it when you're in love, I know what it's supposed to feel like and I don't feel it." He says shaking his head. He knows it, Zoro knows it, Robin knows it, so why is Franky so adamant that he is in fact in love with Zoro?

Franky tilts his head to the side and looks at Sanji thoughtfully with his chin in his hand. He taps his cheek with a large finger and gives Sanji a considering look.

"You know what it's supposed to feel like when you're in love, huh? What do you think being in love is _supposed_ to feel like then?" He asks carefully and lowers his sunglasses back down over his eyes, giving him an unreadable expression.

"You want me to tell you what love feels like?" Sanji blinks confused, Franky just nods and waits for him to elaborate.

"Love… love feels like… like everything has changed. You're supposed to feel like you were made for that person, like they were made for you too. You're supposed to just know when you're in love, you feel it in your bones, every part of you knows when you're in love. All you care about is that person, all you want is that person. You see them and your world just changes you know? It's as if the world's been dark your whole life and suddenly there's a spotlight on this one person. And… and I don't feel like that about Zoro." Sanji explains trying to put into words what he knows love is supposed to be like.

"Perhaps," Franky says slowly, rubbing his forehead with his hand in stress, "you don't feel like that for Zoro because that's not what love is like. That's what the stories say it's like, but… truth be told you often don't know when you're in love. But you so obviously are that I can't believe you don't know."

"So what's love really like then, if I'm so wrong?" Sanji retorted glowering at Franky.

"You just risked one of the most important things in your life for someone and you're asking me?" the shipwright grins cheekily as he points at Sanji's battered hands.

"No one else can tell you for certain if you're in love Sanji, nor can anyone tell you what love is like for you, it's a little different for everyone and I can't tell you how you really feel either. But perhaps if you stopped comparing how you actually feel to how you think you're supposed to feel then you might just discover what you really feel for Zoro and realise that I'm right." Franky says gently.

"Come on, let's get this food back and get your hands taken care of." The cyborg says standing up with a stretch and flashing Sanji a bright smile.

Sanji stares at his torn knuckles for a few more seconds before quickly running to catch up with Franky pulling the cart. Franky couldn't be right… could he?


	17. Chapter 17

Sanji follows Franky slowly to the Sunny, still chewing over what the shipwright had said. Was his idea of what love was really wrong? Could he really be in love with Zoro without even knowing it? He didn't think so but then again he only had to hold up his own hands to see the evidence. He couldn't even remember what he'd been thinking when he punched Judas, outside of wanting to kill him that was. He couldn't imagine that anything other than love would make him risk such a thing.

"Ahoy! Franky, Zoro!" Usopp calls out from the crow's nest on the Sunny. Franky waves up at the sharpshooter as they walk closer.

He has no idea what he's going to say to Zoro if he asks about Judas, and of course he's going to ask what happened, he's clearly been in a fight. He can't lie to the man but… he's not sure that he wants to admit what he did, he doesn't want Zoro to be angry at him, or worried about Judas which would definitely be worse.

"Oh wow, what happened to you two?" Usopp calls to them as he leans over the railing to look down at them.

Sanji looks over at Franky. It's probably only credit to the man's metal nose that Franky's face isn't looking worse, he'd connected his heel with the shipwright's face at quite a force, as the slow still flowing trickle of blood can attest to. He on the other hand is soaked in blood, there's probably not quite as much there as it looks like with the seawater and Judas' blood having mixed, but nonetheless it's soaked right through the cuffs of his white shirt and darkened the fabric of his jacket. Splatters of blood also run up the exposed chest of his shirt and his collar is bright red from the split lip that Judas gave him in his moment of freedom.

"We got into a fight." He mutters and boards the gangplank, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets in an effort to disguise his injuries.

"With each other?" Usopp blinks with surprise clearly written all over his face. The rest of their nakama are starting to gather now, Sanji can see a hint of marimo green at the edge of his vision but he doesn't turn to look.

"No, not with each other." Sanji answers rolling his eyes, as if he'd ever do to Franky what he did to Judas.

"Hey, speak for yourself buddy." Franky adds sniffing again in an attempt to quell to blood flowing from his nose.

"I said sorry for that!" He protests irritably, his fists clenching in annoyance.

He realises that he must have exposed more of his hand than he meant to when he clenched his fist and given himself away when he feels the tug on his sleeve and the firm hand on his wrist. He turns, eyes and mouth wide open, to see Zoro holding onto his wrist and staring down at his tattered fist with something akin to horror in his eyes.

"What _happened_ to you? What happened to your hands? Who did this to you?" Zoro demands angrily, his own free hand twitching tensely in the direction of his swords, a reliable tell of Zoro's anger.

"I didn't- no one _did_ this to me. And most of the blood isn't mine, I'm fine." He says holding up his hands to calm Zoro, he winces though as the sore flesh of his hands stretches and moves.

"He punched someone. In the face, repeatedly. There was also an attempt at drowning and strangling I believe as well, I was a little preoccupied dealing with the other guys at the time." Franky elaborates. Sanji shoots him a dark look, he doesn't appreciate being dropped right in it.

"Sanji punched someone? Yeah right, I've never seen him hit anyone with his hands." Nami says dismissively, but the adorable crease in her forehead suggests that she's not quite convinced by her own words as she looks at him doubtfully.

"Who did you punch?" Luffy asks quickly, giving Sanji and intense look that suggests that he already knows the answer. Thankfully Franky doesn't leap into answer now.

"Judas. But trust me, he really deserved it." Sanji insists, although if pressed he's not going to reveal just _how_ Judas deserved what he got to anyone but Zoro.

"He did." Franky echoes agreeably.

Zoro however doesn't look impressed at this. In fact his eyes are hard and his mouth is pressed into a thin angry line. Sanji wants to pull away from that look but part of him feels like he deserves Zoro's disapproval for being such a shitty person and for trying to kill Zoro's ex.

"Let me see your hands Sanji!" Chopper pipes up in his tiny voice. The little reindeer rushes over and takes his hand from Zoro. He turns it this way and that and experimentally feels at the bones even though the pressure makes Sanji wince, he examines his torn skin with disapproval.

"Come on, let's get you seen to." Chopper says in the voice that suggests that it's a request at the moment, but one that you'd do well to agree to. Knowing better than to argue with the little doctor he follows the little reindeer down into the sick bay.

Chopper dunks his hands in clean, warm water and true to Sanji's expectations almost all of the blood comes away, it wasn't his anyway. His knuckles look torn up still though, the blood couldn't hide that, and his knuckles and the tops of his fingers look slightly swollen and red. Careful as always Chopper cleans his knuckles with a clean washcloth and applies an anti-septic salve after that and finishes with a light gauze bandage to keep the torn skin clean.

He's experimentally flexing his hands which feel stiff and somewhat uncomfortable when Zoro appears at the door with a face like a thundercloud.

"So you're punching people now then?" He says darkly with a tone of accusation in his voice.

"Not an experience I'll aim to repeat, it kind of hurts." He answers lightly in the hopes of lifting Zoro's mood. It seems however that Zoro's mood won't be lifted.

"So you just don't give a shit about your dream now then? Is that how it is? Because you obviously don't care if you're just going to risk your hands like that." the swordsman says angrily.

"It's not like that Zoro." He sighs irritably, Zoro is completely overreacting at this. What is perplexing him somewhat though is that Zoro isn't so much angry about who he punched but angry that he punched anyone at all, he seems more concerned about Sanji's hands than anything else, which is odd.

"His hands are actually fine Zoro, he's definitely going to be able to keep cooking. I'd be happy for him to cook tonight in fact, the rest of you come in with far worse injuries most weeks." Chopper points out helpfully. Sanji feels a surge of gratitude for the little doctor sticking up for him like that. Zoro apparently doesn't share his sentiment and glares harshly at Chopper who quickly excuses himself with a scared squeak and an excuse that he should see to Franky's nose.

Zoro returns his kilowatt glare to Sanji and the two of them stare each other down for a while. Sanji takes a moment to look at Zoro, to really look at him, to take in all his features and mentally trace all those familiar expressions that run across his face. He feels a small flutter of warmth in his chest and realises slowly that this isn't the first time he's felt that butterfly weak flutter in his chest, perhaps Franky might be onto something. Zoro's expression softens and his frown takes on a hint of worry to it.

"What were you _thinking_ Sanji?" he asks with an irritable huff.

"I was thinking of you." Sanji answers quietly.

And it is so, _so_ simple all of a sudden. And okay, so it isn't as if the world has suddenly caught on fire at Zoro's presence or as if angels have descended holding a banner with Zoro's name on it, it's not how he expected it. But with his mind finally quieted from assertions that he isn't in love with Zoro or ideas about what love is like he can feel it.

It's a strange pull in his chest, almost like magnetism. He knows that he's prepared to follow Zoro wherever he's needed, he can feel that for no apparent reason Zoro being close just makes things feel better, he knows that all his angst has been primarily because of being further from Zoro than he'd like. He risked his hands not because his dream was no longer important but instead because Zoro suddenly _was_ important. The risk wasn't big but he'd got it into his head that Zoro would be hurt if he kicked Judas, so he'd weighed those two options and decided to risk his hands. An illogical decision, but a telling one nonetheless.

He smiles slowly at Zoro who just looks somewhat surprised and perplexed.

"You're mad at me." Sanji states with a grin as the thought dawns on him slowly.

"Of course I am, you're acting like a moron and risking your dream for nothing!" Zoro snaps irritably.

"You were worried about me. You thought that this was my blood, that someone had hurt my hands really badly. You were _worried_ for me." He grins broadly and tugs at his blood stained sleeves to emphasise his point.

"I- I wasn't." Zoro denies but Sanji is clearheaded enough now to spot the embarrassed pinking of his cheeks which just makes him grin further. Oh, he was an _idiot_ to not see this sooner, a blind fool in fact.

"You were. But I meant it by the way, I punched him for you. The things that bastard was saying, he needed to be put in his place." He shrugs rolling his shoulders to relax his still tense muscles from the fight.

"And his place is six feet under is it?" Zoro snorts rolling his eyes.

"Yeah. Got a problem with that? Or do you still love him?" he asks challengingly.

"Are you kidding me? I hate him." Zoro laughs harshly and glowers at the floor.

"Oh good. So what was with the veto on harming him then?" he probes further, desperate to know the answer. Zoro's head raises at this and he looks at Sanji with an expression of surprise, as if he'd just asked the most obvious question in the world.

"He's a manipulative little bastard, I thought what he already did to me proved that. I didn't want any of you going anywhere near him because I didn't want him getting his claws into any of you. But it seems like that didn't work, he managed to goad you into attacking him, probably because he thought it might piss me off." The swordsman explains slowly with a regretful look at Sanji's hands.

"Well, that plan of his didn't go like he fucking expected did it? Hah, he wasn't expecting me!" Sanji laughs triumphantly punching the air with a grin.

"Pft, you're not what _anyone_ expects." Zoro snorts, his small smile a little fond.

Something in Sanji's chest tightens at that slight affectionate smile from Zoro. He hooks his fingers into Zoro's waistband and pulls him closer, resting his head on Zoro's broad chest.

"I'm an idiot, did you know that? A blind idiot." He murmurs against Zoro's shirt, the warmth from Zoro's body seeping into his cheek.

"I knew that already. And I blame your stupid haircut for that last part." The swordsman chuckles, tangling a hand in Sanji's blonde locks to make a point. He practically melts when Zoro starts scratching his scalp absently with blunt fingernails. Zoro certainly doesn't seem angry now, he's pretty sure he was on the money when he accused Zoro of being worried for him, and now that he's clearly not badly hurt Zoro is calmer.

"Hmm. Zoro, you promise not to freak out if I tell you something?" he mumbles into Zoro's warm chest. He feels the swordsman shrug and his hands still in Sanji's blonde hair.

"Go for it." The swordsman says simply.

"I'm…" He starts and hesitates. He tightens a hand in Zoro's shirt and is glad that Zoro isn't looking him in the eye for this, he's not sure that he could spit it out if he were.

"I'm in love with you." He says tentatively.

He feels Zoro's body jolt and quickly the swordsman steps back and looks at him wide eyed. Sanji straightens up, releases Zoro's shirt and forces himself to look the green-haired man in the eyes.

"What?" Zoro says, his voice monotonous and flat and his eyes wide with surprise and perhaps a hint of fear.

"You heard me." Sanji says firmly and watches Zoro for his next move. He's not going to give the swordsman the wriggle room to deny anything because he's fudging his words.

"You… you don't mean that. You're not in- no." Zoro says shaking his head firmly.

"I am, I'm sure of it. I'm an idiot for not seeing it sooner but there you go." He insists wincing at how stupid he'd been until now to not realise it. But the flood of warmth in his chest at Zoro's very presence is compelling evidence and his own behaviour lately is absolute proof, now that he's not trying to fit his feelings into a box for what they should be he can see them for what they are.

"You're not. You've never been in love, you said so yourself. You wouldn't know love if it hit you in the face!" Zoro snaps defensively. Sanji rolls his eyes, so much for Zoro not freaking out. It doesn't help Zoro is right in a way, he didn't recognise that he was in love until Franky pretty much rubbed his face in it.

"Really? You think I'd risk these for anyone? I was thinking of you remember?" He says calmly and holds up the back of one scratched up and bruised hand as evidence.

Zoro's eyes land on his hands and his forehead creases with so many conflicting emotions that Sanji actually aches to see it. He's well aware that Zoro's not got especially positive associations with people who tell him that they love him romantically, he knows all too well how the last two people that did that turned out for Zoro, so he can understand the denial and panicked response. Zoro has good reason to be jumpy, what Judas and that other guy did to him clearly cut him deeper than even Mihawk's blade did. Zoro's never afraid of physical injury, he can handle himself in a fight to say the least and his wounds heal fast, but emotional wounds sometimes never heal. Sanji might as well be sticking his hand into a half-healed wound of Zoro's for all the positive response he's getting from the man. But he can't be gentle here, any lack of conviction on his part will do more harm than good and cause Zoro to quite firmly slot him in the same mental bracket as his other lovers, and that's somewhere that Sanji doesn't want to be. Zoro needs to know that he's serious here.

"Why would you say that? Why would you lie? Especially after all of this!" Zoro says accusingly.

Sanji lets that one roll off of him, he was expecting that response. He's not going to dignify it with and answer though. Zoro is trying to get out of this situation but he's not going to let him do that. The marimo falls silent after that, he looks tense and twitchy but he's not throwing any other accusations at Sanji so he figures that it's safe to speak again.

"I meant what I said before you know. I always wanted more than just one night with you. I'm yours for as long as you want me Zoro, just say the word. This is your decision here." He says with more calm in his voice than he feels inside. He doesn't want Zoro to reject him again but this has to be Zoro's choice.

Zoro is tense and frustratingly silent so Sanji tentatively stands up and closes the gap between them. Zoro still doesn't move as he reaches his hand up and ghosts his fingers along Zoro's jaw and past his earrings, making them chime quietly in the silent room, until his fingers find their home in that soft marimo hair.

"I love you, you stupid marimo-brain." He breathes and gently kisses Zoro.

The kiss is innocent but even that sends electricity arcing through his body and he can't believe that he'd been able to forget just how alive he feels when he touches Zoro. Zoro gasps out a soft 'oh' and Sanji takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. He was hoping for Zoro to respond in kind but instead Zoro moves with deadly speed and slams him against the door and kisses him fiercely. Zoro's right hand is pinning Sanji's to the door and his other has shoved its way up his shirt and it trailing sparks of heat on Sanji's skin.

His whole body comes alive and practically vibrates with pleasure, he doesn't even care about the stinging protest of pain from his split bottom lip because kissing Zoro still feels so much better than not kissing him. It seems that Zoro has this ability to jam himself straight into Sanji's nervous system and press every pleasure switch that his brain has. With a desperate sound slipping from his lips he swiftly moves one leg and pulls Zoro closer to him, desperate for any contact he can get. He feels suddenly light headed and he's sure that it's because all the blood in his head has declared a state of emergency and rushed southwards with excited and hopeful anticipation of this continuing.

God, he can't believe how good it feels to be kissing Zoro again. He feels more relief that he felt after getting cigarettes again when the Baratie ran out for a fortnight, it seems that the swordsman is his biggest addiction to date and the last two weeks have been just one hell of a withdrawal.

All of a sudden Zoro pulls away and stands back wide eyed and panting. He claws his hands through his hair and looks at Sanji with a mix of lust and fear, he looks as if he's equally likely to run away as he is to throw himself back at Sanji.

"Fuck. I can't do this. I can't Sanji, I just can't. This is such a bad idea, you know that, we've talked about it." Zoro pants although he doesn't sound as convinced as he used to.

Sanji lets his head fall back against the door and resists the urge to scream. He straightens up again and looks Zoro in the eye.

"Fine. But promise me this: promise me that you'll actually think about this and not just say no or make up some bullshit 'bad idea' excuse. At least give me that much, give me a chance." He insists firmly. He expects Zoro to deny him, to insist once again that they are a bad idea, but to his pleased surprised Zoro just sighs and nods weakly.

"Okay, I owe you that much." He agrees quietly.

"Go on then, run off." Sanji sighs moving away from the door and opening it for Zoro so that the man can escape as he is prone to doing lately.

Zoro stays still however and tilts his head at Sanji.

"I'm being a real jerk to you aren't I?" He says with a somewhat guilty look on his face.

"You kind of are. But I guess that's what love is for, huh?" He smiles back weakly. And it was true, despite all the obstacles that Zoro had thrown up in his way he was still running blindly after Zoro because he wanted him and, well, he loved him. He could understand how love could destroy people if everyone felt this compulsive after the person they loved. Robin might not have been completely wrong about love, he could see how this could be dangerous. But he trusted Zoro, the other man might hesitate and frustrate him accidentally but he would never be malicious to him.

"Sorry about that." Zoro apologises as he passes him on his way out the door. In the threshold he pauses though. After a moment he leans back and catches Sanji by the back of his neck and pulls him into a soft kiss. After a second Zoro releases Sanji and leaves him gripping the infirmary door in a haze of hormones as he walks away.


	18. Chapter 18

Sanji is flitting around the kitchen making breakfast for the crew, he finally feels refreshed and awake from the first good night's sleep that he's had in ages. He'd finally realised that he'd been mistaken and done everything that he could to change the situation with Zoro, now it's all up to Zoro and with that out of his hands he can relax a little. Okay, so he still gets a little hopeful clench of his stomach whenever he sees Zoro, in the hopes that Zoro is about to tell him yes, but that was beside the point.

He stirs the steadily thickening syrup in the saucepan and then returns to hovering over his still cooking pancake. In the fridge already prepared are whipped cream and various fresh fruit to be served with the pancakes, he felt like a luxurious breakfast when he first woke up and the rest of the crew is going to love it.

Speaking of love he is still only just catching up to the idea. Love was fine as a label for his feelings for Zoro but he'd not realised analysed what it meant outside of wanting to be with Zoro. He was really trying to see things from Zoro's point of view, and he can see that if things did turn sour for one reason or another then he might fall out of love with Zoro but he wasn't sure that Zoro could or would do _anything_ so bad that it would break their relationship as nakama. The worst fight that he and Zoro had ever had was after Zoro had punched him in the face on the beach, he'd hated Zoro fiercely then but he still knew that they were nakama. That had made him angrier at the time, that Zoro had been so terrible to him but he'd still risk his life for the man. Would that relationship have crumbled if Zoro hadn't come to him and apologised and explained? He really couldn't say.

Still, he wasn't sure Zoro would do anything so bad to provoke that kind of hatred if they were to have a relationship. He considered it, he'd be heartbroken if Zoro cheated on him, and he'd also be heartbroken if Zoro rejected him but ended up with someone else instead. His stomach sinks with those thoughts and he has to actually shake himself to snap himself out of that melancholy. Still, Zoro seems like an honest person, he doubts that Zoro would cheat, especially not as he'd had it done to him. So what else was there then? What was the worst that could possibly happen? He doubts that Zoro was the type to turn abusive on a partner, on the contrary he hadn't even been able to harm Judas at the bar after all he'd done. So that was out of the question. And short of an elaborate scheme like the one Judas had pulled he couldn't think of anything Zoro could do to make him hate him, and that was an outlandish idea at best.

So then, Zoro's fears about the two of them being a bad idea were bullshit as he'd always said they were. But… then there was the other extreme to consider wasn't there? Suppose things didn't go terribly, suppose that things went perfectly right? Suppose that this was a forever and always kind of love. Was there a permanent place in his life for the marimo?

He takes everything off of the burner for a moment and closes his eyes and tries to picture it. Where would he be ten or twenty years from now? Luffy would almost certainly be the pirate king by then, Robin would either be still searching for her lost history or settled down to a relatively quiet life having found it, or perhaps she would explore old ruins, go back to Skypiea and do more archaeological work. Chopper would probably still follow Luffy around, he wouldn't be content to let anyone else tend to his crew, similarly he was convinced that Franky would never part from the Sunny as long as the ship was seaworthy. Nami would be diligently compiling her map and Usopp would either go back to a quiet life with his doctor girl or stay on the sea with Luffy. Zoro… Zoro would most certainly have beaten Mihawk by then, he could feel it in his bones that Zoro would achieve his dream. And he would hopefully have found All-Blue by then.

But… what happens then? The crew would probably regularly separate and reunite on their own separate trips and pursue their own goals, they'd always be nakama but not necessarily together. As for him, it wouldn't be enough just to find All-Blue and leave it right away, he'd want to stay there a while for sure. Perhaps… perhaps he could take the shitty old man there and show him their realised dream. Perhaps the Baratie could set up shop there, all his family of fighting cooks cooking whatever they like with all the ingredients they wanted. Sure he'd leave to help Luffy whenever his captain called, but it'd be nice to stay at All-Blue when he wasn't needed.

Where did Zoro fit into that? Once Zoro has defeated Mihawk he was free to do what he liked wasn't he? He closes his eyes and tries to imagine the Baratie moored on that fantastic sea, he remembers the smell of the ship, the feel of the deck, the sounds of his family. He can almost reach out and touch it, it seems so real. But there… by the door to the ship, soaking in the sun and lazing about, he could see Zoro there. He can imagine the swordsman's warm smile, he can imagine lazy days in the sun and fighting off stupid pirates with Zoro at his back like always, he can imagine meals just he and Zoro. Perhaps Zoro might actually try to learn to cook a little or put his passion for alcohol to good use and open a bar on the Baratie. He could imagine warm hands at his side and curling into Zoro's half-asleep form after a long tiring day feeding customers, he can almost feel Zoro's half awake kiss ghost across his skin as they fall asleep together.

His eyes fly open and he can feel his face warm with embarrassment. He feels a little girly imagining some perfect future with Zoro but… but at least he knows that he wouldn't mind it if he and Zoro were a permanent thing. It's unlikely to happen and he's not going to dwell on it but still… it wouldn't be half bad having a marimo with him forever.

"You seem deep in thought cook-san." Robin's smooth voice says from behind him.

He leaps about a foot in the air at her voice and spins quickly to see her perched elegantly on a barstool as one of her hands across the other side of the room pours herself a cup of coffee.

"Ah, sorry Robin-chan. Do you want to me get you that coffee?" He offers making and move to the coffee pot.

"I can handle it." Robin smiles coyly and her own disembodied hands pass the coffee to her. He smiles at her because she is pretty and wonderful, and despite their last unsettling conversation about Zoro he does love her a little too because she's nakama.

The thought niggles in his head as he puts the food back onto their respective burners on the stove. Her conversation with him about Zoro runs through his head.

"You were wrong by the way." He pipes up suddenly as he flips a pancake. He turns his head to look at Robin and sees that she looks a tad perplexed.

"About me and Zoro." He adds to clarify.

"Oh?" Robin says raising a perfectly arched eyebrow at him.

"I _am_ in love with him." He states with certainty and stares Robin straight in the eye. She breaks eye contact with him and looks down into her coffee.

"I can see that you're pretty certain about that. May I ask if you still think of itself love like you did before?" she says after a moment, her finger tapping tensely on the coffee cup.

Sanji tilts his head in concession to that thought and takes the pancake from its frying pan and places it on a plate.

"No, not quite. But I don't agree with your pessimistic interpretation of love either." He states with a nod and adds another ladle full of pancake batter to the hot pan and swirling it around carefully.

He looks at Robin quietly over his shoulder. She doesn't look pleased for him but she doesn't look angry either, her expression has a touch of concern to it on top of her usual neutral look.

"Do you really think of love like that? Like a sickness or a mental illness? Or were you just saying that to scare me off from potentially hurting Zoro?" Sanji asks as he turns with his arms folded as he watches Robin carefully. Her expression is troubled as she starts to speak.

"A little of both I must confess. I think that someone must be mad to actively try to fall in love as you have with Zoro. And I do believe that love affects us as madness does, it makes us do stupid things and take risks and trust where we would not if we weren't so afflicted. I might concede that my opinions on love might be coloured by my experiences and I am sure Zoro's are as well, both of us have to one degree or another experienced the cruelty that love can bring." She says her face tense and a little sad.

"But equally I should confess that my motives were a little selfish. You are all the first nakama that I've ever had and it would pain me greatly if we were to all go our separate ways and I must confess that the fight that you and Zoro had scared me, especially with how angry you became. I feared that if that was the sort of fight that a misunderstanding in flirting could cause then I wasn't going to support you two going any further than that, especially since Zoro did seem the type to tie love with sex very closely. If one of you loved the other you could hurt each other immensely. So in an effort to protect him and keep us all together I may have been sterner with you than I should have. If my doing so hurt your feelings I do apologise." Robin explains quietly. Sanji considers this as he flips the pancake in his pan.

"I forgive you my wonderful Robin-chan." He smiles charmingly at her. Even if he's a little ticked at her presumptuous actions he's too much of a gentleman to really hold them against her. He can understand that she was motivated by both concern for her nakama and fear for them and for herself.

"So," she says with a small frown as she taps her coffee cup tensely, "are you two in a relationship now?"

Sanji tenses a little and scuffs his shoe on the floor. He really wishes that he could say yes to that question but it wouldn't be the truth would it?

"Not at the moment, but that's for Zoro to decide. I'm just waiting for him." He sighs and turns back to his stove, removing the third cooked pancake and pouring another ladle full of pancake batter into the sizzling pan.

If Robin was going to make a further comment then she didn't get a chance as at that moment the rest of the crew came shambling into the galley badgering him for breakfast. He glances over his shoulder to see Zoro still half asleep, hair sticking up at odd angles his feet are bare and his pyjama pants hanging temptingly low on his hips.

"Oi, marimo, Usopp, lay the table already." He orders over his shoulder. Usopp scrambles sleepily to his side and starts removing glasses noisily from the cupboard without protest.

"Alright, alright." Zoro grumbles sleepily and pads past Sanji. Sanji feels a pull of desire towards Zoro as the man walks past but he manages to resist it, he knows better than to push Zoro right now and there's an audience to boot. He suppresses his feelings and focuses on his pancakes, he expertly flips one over and presses the spatula down on it, making the uncooked side sizzle pleasantly.

Zoro reaches for the cutlery drawer but then Sanji has to reach over and stir the syrup because it's starting to burn, which puts him in Zoro's way.

"Hey." Zoro says quietly and puts a hand on Sanji's lower back and presses, effectively manoeuvring him out of the way and also making his whole body tingle. Zoro rummages through the cutlery drawer with his other hand but Sanji can feel the heat from Zoro's left hand pressed against his back, Zoro's always so goddamn warm. He's not sure if he makes a noise or not but Zoro looks over to him and for a second they just look at each other. Then slowly, like the rising of the sun, Zoro smiles and Sanji's heart flutters wildly in his chest.

"Something's burning." Zoro whispers with a grin as he passes Sanji again and removes his hand. With that Sanji's attention snaps back and he rapidly flips the singeing pancake, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

"There's ah- stuff… in the fridge." He calls to Zoro, gesturing at the fridge as his brain scrambles to catch back up to the situation.

"How helpful." Zoro says arching an eyebrow at him. He opens the fridge with his free hand and pulls the whipped cream free.

"This it?" he asks holding the bowl up.

"Yeah, there's fruit too." Sanji replies, looking back at his pancakes intently.

"Usopp! Fridge!" Zoro yells across the room and heads off to the table. Sanji turns when he hears Zoro softly curse and sees that Zoro put the bowl down clumsily, covering his thumb in cream. He catches Zoro's eyes as he puts his thumb in his mouth to suck off the cream, at that moment Zoro seems to realise the implications of what he's doing and his face reddens as he snatches his hand away from his mouth quickly.

Sanji serves up another pancake onto the stack and squeezes his eyes shut as he pours a new batch of batter in, he really, _really_ hopes that Zoro makes up his mind before he loses his.

He serves up more pancakes one after the other and the crew tucks in together. This is one of the few things he doesn't especially like about pancakes, he has to cook to keep the supply going and doesn't get to eat until the very end, by which point he's often alone or without any fillings for his pancakes. When he eventually deems that everyone at the table has eaten their fill he sets up a small stack of pancakes for himself and heads to the table. He sits opposite Zoro with a sigh, most of the pancake fillings and toppings are, as he expected, gone but Zoro slides what's left of the bowl of whipped cream across the table to him and smacks Luffy's grasping hand trying to steal the last of the cream with his fork.

"I had an idea whilst I was in town this morning before breakfast. Or rather, I heard something." Nami announces over her empty plate with a sly lilt to her smile.

"What is it Nami?" Luffy asks around a mouthful of Usopp's momentarily unguarded pancakes, ignoring the sharpshooter's protests.

"I'd be wondering why Judas was hanging around the island for so long, he was here long before us so his log pose should have set by now and he should have left. I thought that he was sticking around to torment Zoro perhaps." Nami continues thoughtfully. He watches Zoro wince a little at her words.

"But I found out this morning that that particular theory wasn't correct. Turns out that they heard about a pirate that used to frequent this island a lot and buried some of his treasure here so he's been trying to hunt it down, which is why he's been here so long. I propose that we go and get that treasure before he does." She grins toothily, beli signs practically flashing in her eyes.

"I like it, a chance to screw him over and get some money." Usopp muses, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as a smile appears on his face.

"I'm up for that, it'll take the wind out of his sails a little. Plus we could do with the money for more ship building materials to keep around, I'm getting a little low on tar." Franky agrees.

"So it's settled then, we're going treasure hunting." Luffy nods as he cracks his knuckles and laughs deviously.

Zoro however is looking from one nakama to the other with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Can I just say that this is a terrible idea? Why don't we just set sail today and forget all about him?" Zoro points out hopefully.

"Hm, as much as I like ruining this guy's parade I've got to agree with Zoro, something about this gives me a bad feeling. It's too… convenient." Sanji adds. The whole suggestion has rubbed him the wrong way and left him with a strange sense of wariness.

"You believe that he deliberately allowed Nami to hear this rumour?" Robin asks curiously.

"I didn't say that. I've just got a bad feeling." He shrugs and cuts into more of his pancakes and whips them through the small portion of cream at the edge of his plate that Zoro had saved for him.

"Look Nami, don't do it. I bet you a hundred beli that if we go on this it'll all go horribly wrong. Let's just leave it." Zoro insists.

"Bet accepted, and we're still going. Right _Captain_?" Nami purrs looking at Luffy.

"Right!" Luffy agrees bouncing up from the table, babbling about an adventure. He's swiftly followed by Usopp and Chopper who are equally excited. Before long everyone has filed off save for himself and Zoro.

"You realise that you're an idiot for betting against Nami, right?" He says after a moment. Zoro groans and massages his temples.

"I didn't actually mean it, I was just trying to make a point." The swordsman grumbles.

"She'll hold you to it." Sanji declares in a singsong voice as he stands up with his plate and heads to the sink. When he turns though Zoro has gone and the galley door is swinging closed behind him. He suppresses the little pang of loneliness at Zoro's absence and starts the clean up from breakfast by himself.

Two hours later the crew is all ready for their adventure, Zoro and he being the only reluctant parties. Zoro is sulking grumpily and he feels antsy and unable to shake the niggling feeling that something is very wrong here. Still, if something is going to go wrong he'd rather be with his nakama than letting them troop all over the island without him.

Nami leads them into a forested part of the island that is semi-mountainous with narrow forest trails that lead to steep drops. She's following directions that she overheard and using her own navigational knowledge to try to find where this stupid treasure is located. They're walking through most of the forest in single file and Sanji can't say that he objects to his position walking behind Zoro, it's certainly not an unpleasant view.

Sanji hears a hiss all of a sudden and even over Zoro's shoulder he can see the massive snake that's just uncoiled itself in front of Luffy and Nami at the front of their group. It's easily eight feet long with a wide hood around its head like a giant cobra and its fangs are at least the size of Sanji's hand. The snake hisses again loudly and raises itself up to its full height making Nami scream. Zoro's hand is already on his swords and Sanji can feel his own balance shifting to free up a leg should he need it for fighting, but Luffy is ahead of both of them and lightning quick a rubber fist punches the snake through about six trees. The poor creature takes the hint and slithers off into the woodland.

"I wonder how many of those there are around here." Nami says with a shudder running through her delicate shoulders. At that moment a distant hiss reaches their ears. He glances down to see several men running in a panic at the foot of the steep drop of hillside that they're currently on. Through the trees he can see the men being attacked by snakes, unbelievably quickly one of them lunges forward and sinks its fangs into a man's chest, the wet sound from his punctured lungs reaches them all the way up the sheer hillside.

"They're not our problem, and it'd take us far too long to get down there to help them. This cliff is too steep, they'd be dead by the time we got there." Robin points out darkly and Sanji can't help but concede that she's right. Whilst the narrow walkway that they're on in the forest isn't quite a sheer drop it's pretty close, the steep hillside would be impossible to walk down and it's dotted with jagged rocks and trees sticking out at odd angles, you'd have to be suicidal to even attempt it.

"Captain Judas!" One of the men yells, flailing an arm off to his side and only just dodging a strike from another one of the giant cobra like snakes. Sanji can feel the hackles of every crewmember raising at that name.

"Definitely not our problem." Nami repeats coldly and turns to walk off. Several of the crew move to follow her but Zoro is rooted to the spot.

Down below them an explosion goes off and Sanji catches a view of Judas flying to the side. The sickening crack his head makes as it connects with a jagged rock can be heard even from the high hillside that they're on. Zoro's eyes widen and Sanji feels his blood boil. He watches as Zoro's eyes dart to the impossibly steep hillside and Sanji can spot that calculating look in his eyes.

"You're not seriously thinking of going down there are you?" He asks horrified. Zoro turns to him, his face pale and worried.

"I can't just leave him to die!" Zoro exclaims. Behind him Sanji can see the rest of their crew watching Zoro carefully.

"Sure you can: just like this." He says standing there doing nothing to demonstrate his point, it's really that simple.

Below them a menacing hiss rings out and Sanji sees a large cobra advancing towards Judas' crumpled body menacingly, its hood flaring and mouth open threateningly.

"I can't just leave him there!" Zoro insists, lurching dangerously towards the edge of the path. He grabs Zoro's arm tightly just in time, he's not about to let Zoro hurl himself down that drop into a pit of snakes to save _Judas_ of all people!

"Zoro don't!" He begs, keeping a tight hold on the man's arm.

"I have to, I'm sorry!" Zoro apologises and tears his arm free and hurls himself off of the path. He watches in horror as Zoro skids down the hillside only just dodging trees and rocks and managing to remain mostly on his feet.

"Fuck!" he curses loudly. He feels that telltale pull in his chest and realises with sickening certainty that he can't just let Zoro go down there alone, and it's not going to be enough to find a safe route down, Zoro might be hurt or dead by then. Robin is right, he would never do this if he was in his right mind. But then again, he isn't in his right mind is he?

"Fuck…" He curses again and with a steadying breath leaps off of the path after Zoro, ignoring the cries of protest from his nakama.

Trees and rocks whip by him shockingly fast as he runs down the drop, he knows that if he was to stop running at any point that he'd trip and roll down the rest of the hillside and probably die. It's only because he's running that he's able to dodge the trees and rocks at all. He skids to a halt in a cloud of dust and dirt and runs right into the back of Zoro.

"You came." Zoro remarks surprised.

"I can't just leave you to die down here either." He pants against the bare skin of Zoro's neck. He spots the quirked smile that Zoro flashes over his shoulder at him. Sanji looks around him, the snake that was towering over Judas is now two parts of a snake thanks to Zoro's quick sword skills.

"Hold on you guys, we're going to find another way down! Try not to die or anything!" Usopp hollers down at them from above and by the time Sanji turns to look his nakama have already run off.

Zoro pivots on his left foot and dashes off to save what's left of the men with Judas, reluctantly Sanji follows. He supposes that it isn't the fault of these men that they're captain is the biggest bastard in the world and even he in good conscience can't let them be killed for no reason.

His foot crunches through the skull of one snake, causing it to fall limply to the ground and let the man that was clutched tightly in the coils of its tail fall free. He pulls the dazed man free and dashes off at another snake. After a few of the snakes are dead thanks to his and Zoro's quick work the rest of the snakes back off to a sensible distance and watch them carefully with reptilian eyes.

Keeping his eyes carefully on the retreated snakes Zoro backs up until he's at Judas' body. The swordsman turns, sheathes his swords and crouches by the crumpled man. Zoro presses his tan hand to Judas' chest and waits for a few seconds.

"He's still breathing and his heart is still beating." Zoro announces and moves to inspect Judas' body to see if he's been bitten anywhere by the giant cobras.

"Oh goody." Sanji says flatly and keeps his eyes firmly on the cobras lurking in the tree line, he's not sure he can bear to see Zoro so concerned after that bastard's wellbeing.

"I think it's just a head injury, he's not bleeding too badly. I don't think it's serious." Zoro says in a businesslike voice.

A thought tickles in the back of Sanji's mind, the big lecture that Chopper gave them all a while back about head injuries and how serious they were. It had been prompted by Usopp taking a knock to the head on the Sunny and thinking he was fine, that was until he suddenly passed out into his dinner several hours later. Chopper had given them all a massive lecture on how serious knocks to the head could be and that every single one should be reported, the theme of that lecture being that every head injury is serious because there were risks of concussions and _he-mo-toe-mas_ or something.

"Every head injury is serious." He and Zoro chorus together with a shared laugh, clearly Zoro was remembering Chopper's little talk too.

"Hey, hey. I think they're coming back for another round." Sanji says urgently as he notices the snakes slithering back out into the open together, there's easily eight of them that he can see. He feels Zoro stand up behind him and move to his side, the familiar sound of Zoro's swords being drawn relaxes something inside of him.

"Oh shit." Zoro remarks and presses his back to Sanji's back suddenly. Sanji spares a glance over their shoulders to see that snakes have started appearing from the other tree line at Zoro's side, somehow the clever bastards have managed to surround them.

"Oh good, a situation I know how to deal with. Kill everything that moves that isn't you." He grins toothily and lights a cigarette, behind him he hears the familiar sound of cloth being tightened and knows without even looking that Zoro has donned his black bandana. He smirks around his cigarette and lets the snakes get closer, love and jealousy can go fuck themselves, this is what he was made to do.

He shifts his balance and taps the toe of his shoe on the ground while he plans his attack pattern, behind him he feels Zoro's arm draw back for a swing of his sword and he feels for a flicker that all is right with the world. With that thought taken care of he leaps forward and smashes the heel of his shoe into the skull cavity of a large cobra and bounces without hesitation from the falling snake towards the face of the next one. He blocks a fang with the thick of his sole and brings his other leg around in a devastating arc.

Behind him Zoro moves gracefully and Sanji can hear the wet slicing sound as Zoro's blades sink through the flesh of the attacking snakes like a hot knife through butter. He falls back as two snakes lunge for him at once, he lands on his hands in a handspring that launches him a little further back than he'd intended and he lands between Zoro's body and his swords. The swordsman looks startled for a second before turning to the two snakes that Sanji just escaped, thoughtlessly trusting Sanji to protect his back. Sanji twists to do just that, Zoro trusts him and he's not going to let him down.

Sanji sends the snake that was lunging for their backs flying and glances over his shoulder to see Zoro's swords sink through the skulls of the two snakes and into the dirt below. The remaining few snakes turn tail and smartly slither away. He and Zoro turn and grin at each other, whatever their differences they're both skilled at what they do and both of them know that they can rely on the other in a life or death situation.

The adrenaline from the fight has actually left Sanji half hard, and from the dark smoulder in Zoro's eyes he has a feeling that Zoro's in much the same state. He's considering the merits of ripping Zoro's clothes off right now when a voice behind them immediately destroys his sex drive.

"You really have improved since you were younger." Judas rasps.

Sanji turns his head to see Judas standing shakily and holding his head as if in pain, he's bleeding from his hairline. Sanji doesn't feel the least bit sorry for him and only just represses the impulse to finish the job with a swift kick to the man's temple.

"That's none of your concern. You're alive and not in mortal danger, so we're going." Zoro says emotionlessly and pulls on Sanji's arm. Sanji turns to follow, he doesn't need any encouragement to leave his bastard right where he is. He hopes that the snakes come back to finish the bastard off when Zoro's not looking too.

"I don't think so." Judas says smugly. Sanji is about to turn to see what he means when a hand snags his throat and pulls him back sharply. He gags for breath, sending his cigarette tumbling to the floor and his hands fly to the large strong hand currently viscously crushing his windpipe. He was exhaling when Judas grabbed him and the force of the man's sudden choke hold on his throat knocked the rest of this breath out of him. He flails uncharacteristically helplessly as his body is overwhelmed by the panic of not being able to breathe.

"Ah-ah. I wouldn't do that if I were you Zoro-kun. You see I've improved since we last met too. I've eaten a devil's fruit since then, and if blondie here hadn't kicked me into the sea during our fight on the beach the other day he'd be dead already." Judas says nastily and tightens his hand on Sanji's throat enough to make him see stars.

He struggles for a small breath in which clears his vision slightly and sees Zoro with his sword hovering mere inches from Judas' neck, his blade only halted by Judas' words. Apparently Zoro wasn't considering making threats just then, he was just going to kill him right off, if only he hadn't listened to that bastard's words then this situation would be over already.

"Allow me to demonstrate my powers so you understand the gravity of this situation." Judas says smugly and reaches out his other hand to the tree near to them and places his palm on the bark. Sanji can't turn his neck enough to see quite what happens but quickly a horrible stench fills his nostrils and he hears a wet thump to their left. He strains his neck trying to see, but the tree that was there a moment ago seems to be gone. On the floor instead however is a pile of rotting wood that's withering away before their very eyes and stinking enough to make Sanji's eyes water.

"I'm a rot man, I can rot anything away that I like with a simple touch. Care to see what I can do to living human flesh? It's rather interesting, they don't die until they're almost bones if the screaming and writhing is anything to go by. Even just a moment's touch can be fatal, gangrene is very nasty as I'm sure you know, just in case you were thinking that you could kill me before I could do any harm to your precious little blonde boyfriend here. So I suggest you put that sword away before you hurt someone." Judas says nastily.

Sanji struggles against the hand at his throat but Judas' grip is like iron. Zoro's sword is hovering uncertainly near Judas's throat.

"Now, now Zoro-kun, I know you'd bet your own life on being faster than me, but would you really bet his?" Judas says smugly. Sanji sees Zoro's eyes flicker in his direction.

"Ok, what is it that you want Judas?" Zoro asks with a glare.

Sanji's eyes widen he's not about to let Zoro get forced into some deal with him being used as a bargaining chip, and he doesn't need anyone to save him either. Sanji shakes his head and manages to get enough air into his lungs to think straight, he pulls his elbow forward and readies himself to slam it hard into Judas' solar plexus.

"Hmm, do that and I'll kill you, and you'll break Zoro's heart." Judas purrs next to his ear. Sanji's arm stills and he hears Judas laugh cruelly.

"So easily manipulated, fools in love." he chuckles.

"As to what I want Zoro, it's you of course." the man says simply.

"Fuck you!" Sanji gasps out, clutching at the cold fingers at his throat. Zoro's expression seems to echo Sanji's sentiment and the swordsman adjusts his grip on the hilt of Wado as if considering his potential speed. Sanji wishes that Zoro would just do it already and cleave this fucker in two, he'd be prepared to have Zoro take that risk.

"I'm sorry, I meant: join my crew or I'll kill your little blonde love here. I'll rot him from the inside out, alive." Judas adds, squeezing Sanji's throat again hard enough to make Sanji's vision darken at the edges.

"Fine, let him go." Zoro says after a second through gritted teeth and sheathes his sword in one smooth movement.

"What? Zoro, no!" he chokes out and struggles in Judas's grasp.

"Shut up Sanji. Let him go Judas." Zoro orders, eyeing the older man darkly.

"Hmm, you know I'm not completely convinced that you'll hold to your promise to join me if I do. And he's strong too, perhaps I should make you both join my crew." Judas says in a thoughtful voice.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, if you want me you'll let him go. No negotiations." Zoro says firmly and quickly pulls his sword free again and presses it against his own throat threateningly. Sanji's eyes widen and he claws desperately at the fingers on his throat, he can't let Zoro do that.

"You expect me to believe that? You expect me to believe that you'd break your promise to a dead little girl over him? What about becoming the 'world's greatest swordsman'?" Judas says, his tone clearly aiming for smug certainty but Sanji can hear the waver of doubt in his voice. And it's not surprising, Zoro's hand is rock steady and his face is hard set in a determined expression. He can see that Zoro means what he says.

"I will for him." Zoro states simply. Sanji's heart aches for Zoro, he wishes that Zoro was bluffing but he knows he's not in the same way that he knows that if here were given a choice between Zoro's very life and All-Blue he knows that he'd choose Zoro. After about half a minute of stare-down between Zoro and Judas he's thrown roughly onto the floor at Zoro's feet by the older man. Sanji coughs uncontrollably and clutches his sore throat as he struggles to breathe again. His throat is unbelievably painful as he swallows.

"Sanji, talk to me. Can you breathe?" Zoro asks, his hand on Sanji's shoulder. He rolls onto his back and looks up at Zoro whose face is tight with worry and his eyes are locked distrustfully on Judas.

"I'm fine, let's just get out of here." he says, his voice sounding ragged and thin even to his own ears.

"I can't. I'll be back soon I promise. Love you." Zoro whispers to him, brushing a kiss to his temple and standing up.

"No, Zoro!" he pleads sitting up so fast it makes his head spin, he clutches on to Zoro's leg for balance and to stop him leaving.

"I won't be long, I promise." Zoro murmurs and cards a warm hand through Sanji's hair.

"On the contrary Zoro-kun, you'll be with me for the rest of your life." Judas grins mockingly, his stance wide and confident as he stands with his arms folded.

"No, just the rest of yours. You got me accused for murdering a man in his sleep, remember? It was only because you botched the job that I was acquitted. Too bad that you'll be too dead to see what someone who's stabbed to death in their sleep really looks like. Even if you've got a devil's fruit power you still have to sleep some time and I can wait." Zoro threatens as he walks forward to Judas leaving Sanji sat alone on the floor. Sanji scrabbles to his feet, he has to stop this now or he might never see Zoro again!

"Perhaps I'll just keep you chained up when I sleep, like a bad dog." Judas says gripping Zoro's jaw and sneering at him. Zoro says nothing but glares back fiercely at the dark-haired man.

"Hmm, perhaps I might chain you up at other times too, you were the best fuck I ever had. Maybe you'll be a little feistier if you're unwilling." Judas purrs, stroking a long finger up Zoro's throat. Zoro bares his teeth in a snarl at that but stays put.

Something inside Sanji snaps violently. The image of Zoro chained up and unwilling, forced to- _no_. He'd sooner die than allow that. He throws himself at Judas, fully prepared to tear the man's throat out with his teeth if he has to. He feels his leg catch ablaze with the burning intensity in his heart and feel a sick satisfaction from it, he's going to kick this guy to death, and he knows just where to start. He's got his leg drawn back, prepared to kick Judas in the balls so hard that he'll never get to have sex with anyone ever again much less with _his_ marimo. But before he can so much as swing his burning leg he's pinned to the floor with one hand pressed over his heart and all the breath knocked clean out of his lungs.

"Sanji! No!" he hears Zoro yell distantly, but he can't focus because his head is still spinning from hitting the floor. All he can see of the world is Judas' snarling face and his nasty black hair.

"Big mistake. It's time to die, boy. Consider this payback." he taunts and presses his hand harder on Sanji's chest. All Sanji can think is that Judas' evil snarling face is not the last thing he wants to see before he dies.

"Don't! Please, I'll do anything!" Zoro pleads, grabbing at Judas frantically.

"You will, but that won't stop me." Judas retorts and suddenly Sanji can smell that awful rotting smell again but this time accompanied by a sizzling sound and the sensation of his heart seizing painfully. He squeezes his eyes shut and silently apologizes to Zeff for failing him.

He hears the words 'exploding fire star!' just as he feels the sudden scorch of heat near him. He hears a pained scream and hears several other small something's whizz over him and connect with something.

A large warm hand grabs him under his arm and yanks him backwards, dragging him painfully over the floor.

He hears Zoro shout something to someone, something about not touching someone. He doesn't care, he's dead isn't he?

"Thunderbolt tempo!" a voice that sounds a lot like Nami's yells and Sanji can hear the crack of lightning and smells ozone. His back thunks against something solid, a tree he realizes. His head feels swimmy and painful and something in his chest hurts badly. He feels a warm hand on his cheek and another on his shoulder shaking him gently.

"Sanji! Open your eyes! Please don't be dead!" Zoro's worried voice cuts through his mental haze and he opens his eyes. Zoro slowly swims into focus and the man's face breaks into a weak smile. Sanji thinks that for a second he hears Zoro mutter a thankful prayer, he frowns, that can't be right; Zoro doesn't believe in a god.

"I'm okay, I think." he croaks out and pats his chest in an effort to soothe Zoro's worried expression. He feels something crumble under his fingers and he looks down to see the fine wool of his suit jacket fall apart over his heart like it's a hundred years old. He pulls the jacket open, the rest of his suit jacket is mostly fine but the same place on his shirt underneath has also started fraying and unraveling itself right before his eyes. Zoro delicately pulls at the section of his shirt and it comes away easily, exposing the skin underneath which is red and raw looking.

"Chopper!" Zoro yells loudly over his shoulder. As Zoro turns Sanji can see Nami and Usopp firing their weapons for all they're worth with murder shining in their eyes. Franky skids to a stop at Nami's side and flicks his arm open, readying his cannon and firing almost immediately with a deafening bang.

"Look after him, I have an ex to kill." Zoro growls as Chopper arrives. Zoro straightens up, turning to the side and drawing his sword with a deadly look on his face.

"Sanji, how do you feel? How's your chest? Any tightness or shortness of breath?" Chopper asks urgently and rummages in his little bag for a moment before pulling out a stethoscope.

Sanji frowns and shakes his head, he can't let Zoro go off to fight Judas without him, he'll get hurt. He struggles forward but Chopper puts a firm hoof on his shoulder to keep him there.

"You need to stay put Sanji." Chopper orders him and presses the stethoscope to his chest.

Behind Chopper Luffy hurtles by with a shout, he hears an anguished scream followed by a yell that sounds like it's in Zoro's voice. Sanji struggles vainly to hold onto consciousness but his vision is darkening, he thinks just as he passes out that he hears the _shing_ of Zoro's swords being swung and the sound of trees falling.


	19. Chapter 19

Sanji opens his eyes slowly, he can hear voices. Luffy, he thinks, and Chopper as well. An elbow bangs into his leg suddenly and jolts him further into wakefulness.

"Yow! Chopper that hurts!" Luffy whines unhappily.

"I'm sorry Luffy but I have to make sure that you're okay." Chopper chides him.

Groggily Sanji sits up. He's lying in the bed in the infirmary of the Sunny with Luffy sitting cross-legged at the foot of it and Chopper trying to grab a hold of Luffy's hand, the captain is quite stubbornly resisting, holding his hand high out of reach. He runs a hand through his hair and groans. God, his throat hurts, his chest hurts, even his goddamn hair hurts.

"Sanji! You're awake!" The little doctor exclaims happily and stops trying to catch Luffy and instead rushes to Sanji's side.

"Ungh, what the hell happened to me Chopper? I feel like death." He groans rubbing his sore throat, his voice sounds awful and raspy.

"You don't remember what happened? Can… can you remember who you are?" Chopper asks worriedly. Sanji rolls his eyes and groans, trust the little doctor to get worried about amnesia.

"I meant what happened after I passed out? Why does everything hurt? I remember that bastard trying to strangle me and him throwing me on the floor. The rest is a bit of a blur really." He says hoarsely.

"That's not important right now, stop talking." Chopper orders and presses a stethoscope to his bare back. He follows Chopper's instructions to breathe in and out when ordered, after that Chopper takes his temperature and blood pressure with great diligence. From the end of the bed Luffy watches the two of them carefully.

"Well?" Luffy prompts after Chopper seems done, his face betraying the worry that he feels for the cook.

"He seems fine for the moment Luffy, I want to keep checking on him regularly though. He's not showing any signs of sepsis now." The little doctor answers as he takes the stethoscope buds out of his ears. Luffy smiles broadly at that good news.

Sanji frowns and rubs his head tiredly. What happened? He's often a little unclear on the details of a fight right after he's woken up, so he shuts his eyes and tries to remember. He remembers Zoro threatening to kill himself, threatening his own life unless Judas gave him up. He recalls being thrown on the ground, and remembers Zoro kneeling to his side. He remembers a kiss to his temple and words.

"_I'll be back soon I promise. Love you"_

He jolts at that and in a flash of panic grabs Luffy's red shirt hard in his fist. No, no, no, he can't gain Zoro and then lose him instantly, not if Zoro's finally willing to say yes to everything that he's offering.

"Where is Zoro? Tell me that bastard didn't take him!" He yells desperately. He's not prepared to lose him to that bastard.

"He's fine, Sanji. We won, we all came back safely." Luffy says reassuringly and pats his arm in a gesture of comfort. Sanji feels his grip loosen on Luffy's shirt, Zoro is okay, he's still here.

He remembers more, his desperation to save Zoro from leaving with Judas, lunging at the man only to be knocked back and defeated. He remembers the horrible stench of rot and the terrible pain in his chest. His hand moves to his own heart, there's a big square bandage over his heart that barely seems to contain the throbbing ache from underneath it.

"Your heart got a little out of rhythm for a while, which is part of why you passed out. This is why I want to keep a close eye on you Sanji. I mean it, you need to see me twice a day, I don't want you fighting or drinking, and no excessive smoking either." Chopper explains sternly.

"Shit. Okay, Chopper, you got me. I'll be a good patient I promise." Sanji swears and rests his head against the wooden wall. He hadn't considered the possibility that he could have died, he hadn't thought about his own life when he fought Judas, just Zoro's.

"Good, now if only _all_ of my patients would be so co-operative." The little doctor says menacingly and glowers at Luffy. The rubber boy grins sheepishly at that and tugs at the brim of his straw hat nervously.

"Ah, but you're not trying to cut Sanji apart, of course he'd be more co-operative." Luffy laughs uncomfortably.

"Cut you apart? What's wrong with you?" He asks looking wide eyed at his captain.

Luffy doesn't answer but instead holds out his right hand, it's the furthest away from Sanji so he'd not seen it since he woke up, he's sure he'd have noticed otherwise. Luffy's hand is discoloured to an almost grey hue on his normal skin tone, the skin itself seems wrong. As Sanji rubs a thumb across it he realizes that Luffy's skin is pitted and hard with shallow spider webbed cracks in it. It's almost like… well… like old rubber. Luffy's skin reminds him of long dead machinery rubber, of fan belts and old tires. The affected part covers all of his knuckles on his hand as well as the tops of his fingers and part of the top part of his hand, and from the way that Luffy is holding his hand Sanji isn't quite sure that he can actually open it completely.

"What happened?" Sanji gasps with a tone of horror in his voice.

"Even rubber rots, Sanji. Luffy here should have listened when Zoro told no one to touch Judas. You're just lucky that it only goes skin deep Luffy!" Chopper says scoldingly. Sanji's eyes widen, he always thought of Luffy as indestructible, it's pretty shocking to suddenly be reminded that he too is as mortal as the rest of them.

The little doctor manages to grab Luffy's hand from Sanji and quickly shave a slice of dead rubber-like skin off of the captain's knuckles. The skin underneath is still a little grey tinged but a little more Luffy-like. Their captain whines and snatches his hand back protectively.

"Well, it's not like getting zapped by Judas ever going to happen again is it? Can't use a devil fruit power when you're dead." Luffy says narrowing his eyes maliciously.

Sanji's spine snaps straight at that. Dead? Judas?

"He's dead?" he asks trying to keep the excitement out of his voice and failing.

"Dead and in about four pieces, Zoro was pretty thorough." Luffy grins mercilessly. Sanji shudders for a moment at that, he's never seen Luffy look pleased about anyone being dead, near dead sure but… well, maybe Zoro was right about Judas bringing out the bad side in everyone. Truth be told though he wasn't in the least bit sorry to hear of Judas' demise.

"I've never seen Zoro look like that before, he scared me a little." Chopper whimpers, rubbing his little hooves together.

"Hahah, yeah! That was one scary face he had on! And he took down half the forest with that swing of his sword too, even a logia user would have been cut by that it was so strong!" their captain laughs, looking more like his old self again.

"Where is Zoro anyway? I am free to go, right?" Sanji asks already hopping out of bed.

"Yes, just be careful. And I don't know where he is, I kicked him out of here for disturbing my work too often to see if you were awake." Chopper says dismissively and tries to catch Luffy's hand again. Sanji decides to slip out of the room before Chopper changes his mind.

He's got no shoes or socks on and he's still shirtless too but he can't be bothered to go change right now, all he wants to do is track Zoro down. He jogs quickly down the hallway and quickly hops up the steps to the lawn deck above. The first thing he notices is that the ship is no longer at port, they're back on the open ocean of the grand line again and that knowledge relaxes something inside of Sanji.

He sees Franky's hideous shirt first, he and Usopp are crouched together in front of something. On the balcony above him Nami and Robin are watching the two of them with an amused expression.

"Sanji, how good to see you up and about." Robin calls down with a smile on her beautiful face. He smiles up at her and waves cheerfully. His mind is on other things however, he turns and scans the deck. He can't see Zoro at all. It's only when Franky turns to look at him because of Robin's words that he spots the familiar flash of marimo green.

"Hey, back in the world of the living then?" Franky grins slapping him on the back as Sanji walks closer.

He looks down, Zoro is sat cross-legged and shirtless on the grass, his eyes are closed and his face is free of tension. He's meditating, and quite deeply so if his relaxed posture is anything to go by.

"He's been like this for _four hours_, nothing's waking him. Look." Usopp grins and reaches out and pokes Zoro in his closed eye. Sanji expects Zoro to lash out and grab Usopp's arm and twist it painfully, but the man doesn't even flinch or move at all. He whistles lowly, impressed by both the deepness of Zoro's meditation and by Usopp's unusual bravery.

He sits down gently in front of Zoro and folds his legs as well, mirroring Zoro's own. He runs his eyes over Zoro's loose upturned palms and the white sword balancing in his lap, he can't help but wonder if Zoro killed Judas with that sword or with one of the others.

"Zoro." He says quietly.

"That's not gonna wake-" Usopp cuts himself off when Zoro's eyes flicker open sleepily. Zoro blinks a few times and his eyes focus on him. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Usopp's jaw fall open and Franky grin knowingly.

"Sanji." Zoro remarks softly and Sanji feels his own mouth quirk into a grin.

"Oi, scram you two." He orders, without breaking eye contact with the swordsman. Franky and Usopp hesitate for a moment and then Sanji frowns and glares up at them.

"I'm sorry, did I stutter?" He growls and his two nakama make themselves quickly scarce. When he looks back to Zoro the other man isn't meeting his eyes but is instead looking at the bandage over his heart. Tentatively he reaches a tan hand out and brushes it, his dark eyes watching Sanji carefully. He winces slightly at the sting and Zoro pulls his hand back quickly.

"You nearly got your dumb ass killed, idiot." Zoro snaps, his hand clenching. Sanji smirks at that, he knows Zoro well enough by now to be able to translate that insult.

"I was worried about you too, moron." He smiles gently. Zoro laughs weakly and rubs his forehead tensely.

"So. I hear that you split your ex into four equal parts." He says carefully.

"They weren't exactly _equal_ parts." Zoro chuckles with a wry smile.

"So explain that to me, you couldn't so much as raise your sword to him before and you threw yourself down a cliff to save his worthless life. That seems like a bit of a wasted effort if you just go and kill him after." He points out, watching Zoro closely for any flicker of remorse or regret.

"He tried to kill you." The swordsman growls, his face hard and unrepentant.

"He tried to do worse to you." He says challengingly. Zoro's brow furrows a little at that.

"That's different." He says dismissively. Sanji can see that, he doesn't agree with it but for Zoro it seems like he'll put up with much worse done to himself than he'll allow for his nakama, for the people he loves.

"So, what happened after the lights went out for me?" he asks, changing the subject a little.

"Oh, you know. Usopp and Nami were actually pretty damn helpful in a fight for once, I killed Judas and accidentally deforested about a mile of woodland in the process. We got you back to the Sunny quick as we could and made sure you were okay. Oh… and I owe Nami about three hundred beli." Zoro adds that last part quickly.

"I-why?" Sanji asks incredulously. He knows that Zoro is bad with money and Nami is very, very good with it, but still! Zoro reddens under his scrutiny and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You know that bet I made with her sort of by accident? Apparently you not being dead, Judas being dead and her stumbling across that stupid treasure counts as the day not being 'a total disaster'." The swordsman grumbles irritably.

"But I nearly died, you nearly got forced into slavery, Luffy got his fist all messed up and _Usopp_ had to save the day." Sanji points out feeling stunned.

"I did say that to her. Could… could you loan me three hundred beli? It was one hundred but the witch added interest." The other man asks irritably. Sanji can't help himself, he starts laughing uncontrollably, this whole situation is ridiculous and just so… so _Zoro_. Zoro's face lightens at the cook's laughter but saddens after a few seconds.

"You nearly _died_." He says quietly in a tone that abruptly stops Sanji's laughter and makes something ache inside of him. Zoro's moved before Sanji even realizes it, he's already on his knees, leaning forward with one hand carefully balanced on the floor between them. His other hand nests itself in Sanji's hair.

"I'm not going to ask you to promise not to risk your life again, you can't promise that. Just… please don't be so reckless." Zoro murmurs, looking him in the eye.

"Same to you, stop throwing yourself to the wolves for other people at the first opportunity." He shoots back. Zoro smiles, his teeth white and promisingly sharp at the canines.

"Eh, you're worth it." Zoro shrugs nonchalantly then leans forward and tenderly kisses Sanji's neck, soothing the painful bruise there with a soft press of lips. Sanji feels his heart flutter in his chest, it's a little painful but he's not about to tell Zoro to stop. He whimpers a little but Zoro evidently knows him well enough to tell a whimper of pleasure from one of pain and keeps kissing his skin.

"Sanji, _my_ Sanji." Zoro breathes reverently and kisses the juncture between Sanji's neck and shoulder.

Sanji's eyes widen. So that was it then, not a declaration of love in the heat of battle that could be denied or put down to high emotions. Zoro really meant it, finally Zoro was saying yes. He wraps his arms around Zoro's back and falls backwards, pulling Zoro down with him and earning him a small startled yelp from the other man.

"About _fucking_ time!" Sanji whoops happily and bites Zoro's shoulder hard whilst writhing against the swordsman in an attempt to get as close to him as possible.

"Hey, I'm not that slow." Zoro grouses unhappily and bites Sanji back out of spite and doesn't seem too displeased when Sanji's reaction is far more one of pleasure than pain.

"Zoro, I love you, I do. But I've seen goddamn glaciers move faster than you." Sanji says seriously, propping himself up on one elbow and eyeing Zoro sarcastically through his hair.

"Well, not everyone is as easy as you." The swordsman shoots back pointedly and pinches Sanji's side.

"Prude." He grins up at the marimo goadingly, Zoro always was fun to argue with.

"Slut." Zoro retorts with a matching smirk.

"Wanna fight then have sex?" he asks, waggling his distinctive eyebrows at Zoro.

"What, right here?" Zoro blinks startled. Sanji laughs at that idea but files it away in the back of his head as a possibility if the rest of the crew are ever absent in port for a reasonable length of time.

"How about the kitchen?" Zoro suggests over Sanji's laughter.

"Not a bad idea. It has a lock and I might still have some of that whipped cream left." He muses thoughtfully and revels in the way Zoro's eyes light at that.

….

_Several fish swim past each other in the deep ocean, unperturbed by the morning light glittering down through the water at them. A North Blue fish swims amiably past a large school of little East Blue fish, harmonious in a way that nature and geography never intended. A shadow drifts over some coral usually native only to the South Blue, it's the shadow of a rather large ship. _

_Up on the deck of the ship is a gently dozing green haired swordsman, although his hair at his temples is starting to have some silver strands as well as green lately. A scar runs down one eye, keeping it permanently closed, his arms are wrapped around three swords with his chin resting on the hilt of a white one. His expression is soft though, one of a sleeping man at peace with the world._

_An old man passes him, his hair is snow white and his facial hair is braided to ridiculous extremes. The old man looks down at the sleeping swordsman and irritably taps his metal toes on the deck, the letters and numbers BF-102 are engraved on the man's metal ankle. He tuts and mutters about lazy swordsmen under his breath and turns on his flesh and blood heel to walk inside._

_He makes his way through the mostly empty ship with a slowness of old age holding him down. He makes his way through a grand dining room with expensive furniture. Near the back of the room he walks slowly past a table that doesn't match the rest in the wide dining room, it looks like it's more from an old galley than an upscale restaurant, the chairs are mismatched but the places are always laid as if in waiting for guests that might stop by at any moment. After that he walks through a large ballroom, the stage is empty and the long bar on the far wall is clearly not open this early. Hung up on the wall is a long black bladed sword, easily six or seven feet long. Under it is a sign that reads as follows:_

'_This sword belongs to the world's greatest swordsman. Anyone not paying their bar tab without prior permission from the owners of the All-Blue Baratie will be subject to the sword. Anything that remains of anyone not paying their bill after the sword has been used will be sent to the cheapskate's next of kin, along with a bill for their tab and any damages caused by the swordsman. You have been __**warned**__. Zeff & Sanji'_

_The swinging door to the galley bangs open and for a moment the noise and bluster of the kitchen bleeds out into the large ballroom. A tall blonde man slides out from between the doors, still shouting orders over his shoulder to his staff in the kitchen. In his left hand, balanced with the finesse that comes from a lifetime of practice at carrying full dishes, are two carefully loaded plates and cutlery and in his right are two full glasses of juice. The man looks around the room with both eyes, his longish hair tied back messily behind his head. His unusual swirled eyebrows furrow irritably. _

"_He's lazing out on the deck." The old man says without even being asked. The blonde tuts and mutters the same words as the old man had earlier about lazy swordsmen. _

_The morning sunlight streaming across the swordsman's face is disrupted by a long shadow. Sleepily a dark eye flutters open, the scarred one staying closed as ever._

"_Shit, I meant to watch the sun rise. Fell asleep." The green-haired man mutters and rubs his good eye with the heel of his hand._

"_Dumbass lazy swordsman." The blonde says with a voice that is more fond than it is angry._

"_Stupid love-cook." The other retorts with a familiar smile. _


End file.
